


Inventories and identities

by SrebrnaFH



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AI prejudice, Airport battle ended differently, Artificial Intelligence, Boss Pepper Potts, CEO Pepper Potts, Everyone works in SI because cover story, Maybe a bit of Clint bashing, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, No Team Cap bashing, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Office Work, Peter is an actual intern, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Pepper Potts, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Secret Identity, Siberia never happened, Team actually communicated like grownups, clint is a bit of a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25098040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Ever since Mr Stark had had a rather serious accident during a fight, Peter has been working as Miss Potts' intern. He has been ordered, among other things, to make a series of calls verifying location of various pieces of tech Mr Stark had handed out to people. It is hard, though, when everyone keeps stalling and asking him to call them later...
Relationships: Pepper Potts & Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 320
Kudos: 1336
Collections: Absolute Faves, Irondad and his Iron kids, ellie marvel fics - read





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This happens in a nearly-perfect world in which CW ended up differently, everyone communicated like adult human beings and the team is assigned cover identities and positions in SI that justify their access to tech without making it too obvious who they are.  
> Also, Pepper might be just a little bit salty.
> 
> Edit: I might have been a little sleepy when I posted this. This is a multichapter, 9 pieces, all written, in editing to remove slight plot holes/hiccups/timeline issues. Sorry for the confusion.

"Hello, this is Peter, Peter Parker. I'm calling from Mr Stark's office, looking for Mr... Grant Stevens? Yeah. I, um," Peter glanced at the words displayed by faithful Friday on his second screen. "I was tasked with tracking down several objects that had been misplaced from Mr Stark's lab. Miss Potts— Yes, that would be great. Thanks."

He typed the "call in 30 minutes" note next to that number, wished the man on the other end of the line a nice afternoon and replaced the receiver on his desk phone set with a groan.

He didn't really suspect Miss Potts of hating him.

He suspected her of trying to find him make-work to ensure he was busy until Mr Stark was released from the medbay and could again take Peter off her hands.

Well, even if it was make-work, he was going to do it so properly, she was going to be surprised. And so was Mr Stark.

Give a nerd a challenge to sort something? He will find a way to do it so painfully precisely you will regret it forever.

Peter had already managed to clean the entire lab and workshop, picking up all the nuts, bolts, screws, nails, pins and other elements. He carefully measured each with a caliper and sorted them according to the diameter and thread, separating the metric and the imperial ones between two free worktables and then dividing them into appropriate containers. He even managed to make the label printer work and carefully marked each box, on every side.

Then there were unfinished experiments and work-in-progress constructs. Each of them was documented with a camera (and with Friday's help, also in the surveillance), again labelled, cleaned around (dusted and wiped clean) and covered with a small plastic dome.

Every tiniest piece of paper was recorded as to its place of origins and then stored in one of the printer paper boxes he had found on the top shelf of the bookcase, labelled with the section of the lab it was found in.

The floor was swept, the windowsills were inspected for potential stray tech or debris, the tops of bookcases and the undersides of the tables were carefully checked. He had even taken a walk on the ceiling, undoing covers of lighting fixtures and air conditioning. Just in case. He found some bits and pieces there and, incidentally, flagged the building service team to replace the A/C filters.

Then came the missing materials. There were some, very poor, records of what was bought and what was delivered and what went out of the lab and workshop, but Peter's task was to create a proper papertrail for each and every object that moved through these rooms and their related storages.

Next week he spent in said storages, learning more about his mentor's thought process — at least in relation to purchases of materials — than ever before. He had never had the _need_ to see one of these from the inside, since Mr Stark had always just given him anything that was needed for his experiments and prototypes, having a seemingly unending supply of chemical components and electronic parts. Well, here was the supply itself, and it was rather imposing.

May had been a bit worried when he declared he would be taking the internship to full time during vacation, but Miss Potts supported him, adding the explanation that SI would up the college fund that was prepared for Peter (slightly) and would also start paying him the money he earned outright. That would only be for the days he worked full six hours (since he wasn't allowed more, as an intern and a minor), but the amount suggested as his daily salary was... Well, staggering. He would be able to afford his whole 'back to school' shopping, new clothes, new phone and maybe, if he stretched a bit, some new parts for his computer.

So here he was, now, making phone calls for a long, long list of people that were marked in Tony's lab terminal as persons who had retrieved something from the storage or the lab over the years.

He scrolled down the excel worksheet, marked the hour of the last call, added a note, switched to the next sheet and picked up the receiver.

He would have to ask Miss Potts for one of these hands-off headsets.

"Hello, this is Peter, Peter Parker. I'm calling from Mr Stark's office, looking for Mr Will Samuelson?"

"That would be me, yeah," the man on the other end sighed. "What is it about? I thought the man was in the hospital wing?"

"Well, yes, that's... I mean, I've been given a task of, of cleaning up his lab and workshop and tracking down any missing equipment, and—"

"Calm down, kid. No worries. What do you mean? Why would you call me? I'm pretty sure I don't have any lab benches."

"N-no, I'm sorry, sir," Peter sighed. "I mean I have to trace where various parts or finished products went. I have some objects listed under your name — I mean, descriptions — and if you could confirm that they are related to a project of yours or were transferred to your lab, I will send you the form to sign off and—"

"Sure, kid. Not a problem. Fire away."

"Oh, thank you," Peter slumped in relief. "Um. High durability gloves, fingerless, wrist length. Three pairs."

"That sounds like some of my stuff, yes."

"High durability gloves, full, mid-forearm length, one pair."

"Yep, have them right here."

"High durability—" Peter stopped for a moment. "Um. Sorry, yeah. High durability trousers, size L, tailored, winter version, two pairs."

"Yees. Well, one of them is damaged and I was—"

"I just need to know if you got them. Any future processing or repairs will have to be also recorded, but for now, I just need to know where it all _went_."

"I feel you, kiddo. I had to do it for my unit a few times and I know it's not fun. Go on, let's check the list off and you can add me to the 'done' side of the task."

"Well, you'd be the first one on it," he sighed. "OK, so— Where was I. Ah, OK. A set of backup jet thrusters, size two inches, for self-service replacement."

"Yes, I have. An eight-piece set, if it helps. How come I'd be the first? You started with me? I feel so validated! Normally I'm almost at the end of the alphabet—"

"Ah—" Peter marked another line. "No, actually. You are just the first to really talk to me, I'm afraid. So you may be second to last — and it's not even the alphabetical order, just the size of the file, I started with the ones that have the longest lists. OK. Next, jacket, winter conditions, black. Two pieces."

"Correct. I'm happy to help, Peter - you said your name was Peter, right? - but why would you have any problems getting this from people? That seems pretty tame, as inventories go."

He chewed on his lip.

Tell the nice man? Not tell the nice man?

"Some just told me to call later and never picked up again, some said they don't have time and some aren't ever available under their landline numbers, and I only have landline directory here and so—" he shrugged, even though the man couldn't see him. "Anyway, just two more points on your list and we can be done. Um. Combat boots, black, high durability, winter conditions, size twelve. Three pairs."

"Yeaaah, sounds like mine. Unfortunately. Yep, three pairs."

"Perfect. One last item. Red safety goggles with anti-fogging coating, black leather strap."

"Have them right here, kiddo. All present and accounted for."

Peter slumped over his keyboard in relief.

"Thank you, Mr Samuelson. I will send the form to your e-mail, I just need you to check the approval off in the system or, if this doesn't work for you, print them out, double-sided, sign on every page and put them in the mailbox for Mr Stark's lab in the mailroom. I'll pick them up later."

"No problem, kid. Who's your next victim?"

"Um."

"Don't worry, I was just kidding! Hope you have better luck from now on."

"Thank you, sir. I hope so. OK, the form is with you now, so... Let me know if you have any issues with it or whatever."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superheroes being superheroes ;)

Sam Wilson replaced the receiver on his, admittedly rather ancient, landline set and glanced at the laptop — provided by Stark, same as all the other hardware they were using, on or off mission. Yep, here was the e-mail. Poor kid, sounded rather frustrated with whoever it was that he had to squeeze the inventory out of. However, considering that he was Stark's intern, he would either get used to the sensation of needing to chase stuff down or would not last long.

On the other hand, no sense to make it more painful for the kid than needed. Nobody wanted to be classified in the same league of abrasiveness as Stark, right?

He clicked the form to open and scanned the contents quickly. It was the listing of heavy duty winter gear that Stark had provided him with, indeed. All there, as he read through, although the longer gloves were already slightly losing shape, he'd have to bring them to the man for some corrections... as soon as he was out of medbay burn unit and allowed back on active duty. Even if you discounted the very real worry about Stark's state of health, it was simply inconvenient and bordering on a real obstacle, to have the only technician in the team unavailable to resolve issues with their hardware.

Though, if he had an intern... nope, the kid was probably there to fetch the coffee. And do the filing.

Sam sighed and carefully marked the confirmation with his e-signature.

A total of items and their costs popped up next and he grimaced. This stuff was expensive as fuck. Three to five times the price of standard military winter equipment, though with the amount of reinforced kevlar and what not and the electronics Stark stuffed it with, it was worth every penny.

Sam checked carefully whether the form did not contain some small remark in tiny print that would make him financially responsible for the items in his possession and signed again with relief.

There, good deed done, poor little intern saved from Big Bad Miss Potts' wrath.

Although, he nodded slowly as he submitted the form back, he would have to pay more attention to the wear and tear on his stuff. Stark may be a billionaire, but Sam Wilson did not want to be a leech, if he could avoid it. Possibly.

#

"The weirdest thing happened to me today," Steve said between bites of the casserole. "I thought, you know, what with the newfangled tech and proper security, the Stark Industries phone system would be hack-proof and it turns out even a kid can get into it. Incredible."

"Have you reported it to the security team?" Natasha dipped her spoon in the honey jar and added a huge dollop to her tea. "Stuff like this should go at least to Happy."

"I will tell him tomorrow. I don't want to get some kid in trouble if he was just messing around."

"Must have been a boring day for more than one kid," Wanda added from the couch. "One called my landline. Like, nobody _ever_ calls the landline anymore. I even had it redirected to my cell, but it shows me when a call is coming from there. I mean, not like I'm ever in that office that's supposedly mine."

"I use my room," Sam shrugged. "Good place to keep my documents and textbooks. And it's quiet. And, if I'm not mistaken, I got the same call as the two of you, but _I_ , unlike some, bothered to listen to the kid. And he is legit. I mean, you know. He called from inside the company."

Everyone turned to him.

"You actually talked to some kid who called your landline? Did you hit your head or something?"

"Gerroff," he smacked Natasha's hand before she touched his forehead. "Yeah, I talked to the kid, he is just Stark's kind of assistant and since his boss is on medical leave, Potts is ordering the kid about. And she told him to make an inventory of Stark's workshop."

"Well, his funeral," Natasha grimaced. "I mean, Stark is very particular about how he likes things to be and he won't be happy if some twerp put something out of order."

"Probably, but if it was what Ms Potts told him to do..." Steve sighed, shaking his head. "Poor kid. I mean, seriously, the CEO orders him to clean up his direct boss's workroom? I don't see this ending well."

Clint marched in, holding several bottles.

"What's the meeting about? Nobody told me...?"

"No meeting, you're just late for dinner."

The archer rolled his eyes, pulled a chair up and fetched himself a plate.

"You all have 'war room' faces. What happened?"

"Stark has an intern," Steve started, a bit ponderously. "And the intern is in trouble."

"None of my business," Clint shrugged, digging into the heap of vegetables. "What?"

"It's just some kid that Pepper had ordered to clean Tony's workshop," Natasha explained. "And Tony is going to explode, so, kind of, we are already grieving the kid."

"Sucks to be him."

"But I think we can help, a bit. I mean, if he does properly what _Pepper_ ordered him to do, she would be more willing to cover for him when Tony finds out he fucked up the magical holy way of ordering the screwdrivers or whatever," Sam pointed out. "So, I did my part, quite accidentally, because I'm such a nice guy. Now it's your turn, all of you."

"What?" Clint scrunched his nose. "Why?"

"Because we are nice. Superheroes and all that shit. And I think he has all of us on that list of his."

"Language..."

"And all that stuff. Anyway. Tomorrow, he will be calling all of you all over again. And so on, until you either give him the answers he needs or Pepper decides he has to go, right? Because that's what happens to interns who fuck up, they get the boot. And we don't want to be the reason some poor youngster loses his internship, school credits and whatever else he was promised, right?"

Everyone squirmed a bit uncomfortably.

"Yeaa-ah, I suppose," Natasha drained her cup. "OK, so, tomorrow, we are all nice and we answer the phones and tell the poor widdle boy... what exactly?"

"He will list the gear you might have received at some point from Stark and you just have to confirm whether you got it and if you have it. I had all of mine and I know where what is, so I told him the list was fine. He sent me the form to sign, I just had to acknowledge the list and the costs and that's it."

"Costs?"

He shrugged.

"Probably accounting making use of the kid's work. Not like it's a lot of work for any of us. My list was what, ten items in total, tops."

"I'll pop by Pepper's office tomorrow, ask about something, mmm, maybe we have some papers to be signed... I'll check the details about the kid," Natasha eyed her cup thoughtfully. "I had no idea Stark was taking interns."

"He probably couldn't find a new assistant as patient as Pepper so they assigned him some unlucky college student. Even more unlucky now that he has to clean up Tony's messy lab."

"I'm curious how this even works. Does Stark keep him outside these glass doors and only lets him in when he brings coffee and pastries?" Wanda sounded almost interested. Only almost.

"Whatever his actual job is, right now Tony is still in the medical wing, unable to walk or move too much, and the kid is getting ordered around by Pepper. So, whatever Tony does to him once he sees his workshop... Let's at least make the kid look good in Pepper's eyes, OK?"

They all nodded firmly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Pepper. Pepper and Peter.  
> And FRIDAY.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay of posting of this, but my weekend was pretty full and I just fell asleep before I finished my last-last-last review and edit.

Sam was rather busy the next day, both with training and reviewing the footage from the last two missions. Unfortunately there was no way to find where the additional helpful combatant came from, and however he tweaked the frames, none of them provided him with an explanation of who the man might have been and how he had hidden so effectively.

There was _nothing_ betraying his presence on the ground. Not even a trace.

Sam felt less than impressed both with himself and with the rest of the team.

Experienced fighters, analysts and spies. And missed one little jumpy guy in the middle of the f-ing lawn.

He had to get to the truth here. He just had to. It irked him when people just— showed up out of nowhere. Even if they helped when the team was in a tight spot.

Nat - dressed to the nines, office style - interrupted him when he was trying to draw the map for the umpteenth situation plan.

"I've seen the kid," she said simply, dropping into the chair by the table. "Pepper has him sitting in that little cubicle next to her office, so you can't see him from the outside, well, not easily, but she can see him through the big glass wall they share."

"Oh?" Sam took the desk chair next to her. "And what about him?"

"Just a kid. But he's an actual _kid._ As in, _young_. And I mean it. I don't think he is even fourteen."

"What? Why would a fourteen year old be an intern here? I mean, it's summer, he should be out there, doing idiotic things with his friends..."

Nat shook her head.

"Not sure. But, here, see, I took a photo and managed to film him for a moment."

He squinted at the display and watched as the boy's fingers flew over the keyboard as he spoke into the phone receiver he was holding with his shoulder. Then he replaced it on the desk phone and slowly slumped to lay his head on his crossed arms, his back moving in a way that showed— what? Crying? Laughter?

"I've watched him for twenty minutes and he seems tired. Sleepy, but trying to keep it together. And every time he looks up and glances at Pepper, he seems _worried_. So, yeah. I think the idea to help him get his shit done is valid."

"Kid looks sweet and innocent," he mused. "I mean, look at him. T-shirt with, what is it? Elements..?"

"Mendeleev's periodic table. And some pun about this being a cinema plan, I checked."

"And what, probably jeans and ratty converse?"

"Jeans and nice, _new_ converse."

"I stand corrected. Anyway, a kid, high school, working summer job helping Tony to stay caffeinated, and now dumped into a cubicle next to The Pepper Potts? Seriously? His life already sucks major time. I hope he at least gets school credits for this shit."

She nodded and slid the phone into some invisible pocket.

"So the idea is, we pick up our landlines when someone calls, we are nice and answer questions, we ask for the form to be sent to us in the system, check it, sign it twice and send it back?"

He shrugged.

"That was it for me. The link to the form comes in an e-mail, so you don't even have to look for it too much. And if for some reason it doesn't work correctly for you, there is a way to print it. The kid stressed that printing should be done _on both sides_."

"Ah, environmentally conscious. I like him even more now."

"So, we update the others, you go to your official office and be ready for a thorough interrogation about your gear—"

"Do you think he knows he is calling the Avengers?"

He frowned at her sudden question.

"I don't think so... He called me by my SI codename and nothing on my list is remotely unique. Not like Steve's shield or Rhodes' braces."

"Yees. Well, let's be quiet heroes for the boy today."

####

"I can't just call him like... like this!"

"You've called the others on your list, and you will call them again, Peter, until this is all resolved. Colonel Rhodes is just a man like any other. You call, introduce yourself and explain the situation. Nothing new here."

"But, Miss Potts...!"

"Peter, I need you to just do it. Pick up the receiver, call the number listed by Friday and ask the man for inventory."

"B-but, Miss Potts, the braces! How can I ask him about the braces!? It will be awful..."

"Rhodey is... well, he is not perfectly fine talking about the braces, but then you don't have his braces on the list. Medbay system has checked them off with Friday when he was here to adjust them and Tony needed doctor Cho's input. They are pretty obviously easy to identify."

"Why can't we ask her to track the other stuff, too?"

 _Yeah_ , she thought bitterly. _Why can't we._

"There are several reasons for that, Peter," she sighed as his gaze dropped to the thick sheaf of varied documentation collected from all over Tony's rooms. Peter had been reviewing and making notes on them in a break between the calls, and now he was looking at it with a little annoyed pout. She really wanted to tell him the truth, to explain in detail how angry she was at _some_ people, and how she wanted to make _some_ people to notice what they were doing, but it wasn't the right time, place or state of mind to do it. Still, the boy deserved to be told _something_ , to at least make him see her as different from other grownups, who mostly communicated with children in "because I said so" manner. "One is, a lot of these things were handed out by Tony away from Friday's sensors, or in places where many people were receiving gear. Or even not given directly. Friday can track and try, but we need the actual humans to confirm they received it and that they still have it."

The boy sighed.

"I just don't like to feel like I'm interrogating them, Miss Potts," he mumbled. "It's like... like I'm bullying them and they are avoiding me."

"There is no bullying, these are just direct, simple procedures, Peter," she tapped the papers in front of him. "You are not shaking them down for lunch money, but asking them to provide documentation they should have filled in in the first place. Since everyone, and especially Tony, was too... lax in this area, we have to pick up the slack now. There is also the human factor, dear. Not everyone does — in fact, most people don't — see Friday as anything but a glorified piece of reminder and day organiser software. Many ignore her messages anyway and call me to get a human confirmation, or I have to call or even go and talk to people myself, and I have to send in someone like Happy to fetch Tony, because he mutes her. But Tony ignores everyone equally, so it's not like he is specifically... Anyway. If I tried to make Friday do this, how many people do you think would have actually answered without calling me for clarification? Or, even worse, trying to get Tony to explain?"

"Um. Me?"

"I am sure Peter would have," Friday suggested, her voice almost like slightly wistful.

"I probably would. Anyway, Karen would have reminded me, if I forgot _and_ Karen keeps track of all my gear anyway, so, kind of, um, my list is all done anyway, by default," he nodded towards his phone. "But... Do people really ignore Friday like this? You always listen when she reminds you about stuff, and Mr Stark, well, like..."

"As I said, he ignores everyone equally, human or AI, but yes, he would have probably, at some point—" she shrugged. "But we are not enough. In fact, the four of us - including Happy - we are much less than one percent of people in this building. Almost everyone here thinks Friday is very useful, but, essentially, not a person with her own agency. Sorry, Fri."

"No problem, Miss Boss," the AI simulated a sigh. "Not like I didn't know it, right? We tried this before and unless it's an emergency or it is supported by actual human being, people don't think it's valid and should be done without verbal confirmation from another human person. And a document issued by me has to be signed by someone, to show that it's properly done and confirmed, which counts for the accounting department. Accounting department really likes all the signatures and human-confirmed stock listings, even though I'm the one running the storages."

Peter frowned and his eyes narrowed.

"We should teach everyone that what Friday says is in fact useful and important," he grunted. "I mean, what sense does it make to have an AI managing the building security and other important stuff if people ignore that AI? What will they do next, start ignoring fire alarms she raises?"

"Thank you, Peter. It is nice to know one is appreciated. For the time being, however, you should focus on task at hand. We can start the next round of calls as soon as you are done with your breakfast."

"I don't have—" he paused, looking at the desk. "That's not mine."

Pepper snorted at the obvious confusion the boy displayed.

"It's mine. Well, I bought it, but it's for you. You need more calories and probably way more proteins than you've been eating recently. Treat this as part of the 'interns should be alive at the end of the programme' initiative."

"But, Miss Potts...!"

"You listen, young man, and you listen good. You sit down at your desk and do as I told you, clear? Or I will contact your aunt and she will make your day infinitely more uncomfortable than I can by myself."

Peter sighed and shrugged.

"Yes, ma'am," he rolled his eyes with a smile and sank into his chair. "Miss Potts?"

She turned to have a look at him, waiting.

"H-How is Mr Stark?"

The boy's voice was rather timid, even for him.

"Still under strict orders to lie down with an oxygen mask, not talk to anyone and take it easy. You may imagine what that means."

"He's annoyed to high heaven."

"He is in a rather foul mood, yes. I'll check today if you can drop by, but the doctors were pretty specific about minimising the number of visitors."

His shoulders slumped and he rubbed his eyes tiredly.

She knew Tony missed him like crazy, but then, allowing them to meet would make Tony disregard the doctors' limits on activity, because he'd be trying to prove to Pete that he _was_ OK, because Pete would be anxious, and Peter would also be anxious about Tony moving around too much, so... It still had to wait.

Peter would anyway be visiting Tony way earlier than anyone else, once Tony was cleared for more contact.

"You can write him an e-mail," she suggested finally. "He has been allowed to use his tablet from today. A short one, mind you, and no complicated work details."

"Ooh. OK, I will. Um..."

"You can write about the workshop, don't worry. I've cleared it with him. He wasn't happy but he did admit it was very much in need of a proper cleanup. And he admitted that you are the only one qualified to do it for him. Just don't— don't mention the problem with FRIDAY I've just explained to you. He gets upset too easily about this."

Peter nodded quickly, his eyes falling again to the box of salad and the thick, vegetable stuffed sandwich.

"Eat, have some water and start working on the next items. Also, I don't want you spending too much time sitting down, so today you finish at two, no delays."

"B-but, Miss Potts...!"

"At two, young man. May will be waiting for you at home, so no detours on the way, are we clear?"

The boy looked away mutinously.

"Peter. Are. We. Clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well. If you need anything, just wave."

"Thank you, ma'am."

It almost hurt to see him like this. Scratch that almost, it just hurt. She would have to do something about it...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter calls that one superhero who is on the list under his actual name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, chapter count was bumped up to 10, because I rewrote parts of the last 2 chapters and they became 3. Do I see sad faces because of this? I hope not :)

Peter sighed.

So, OK. This wasn't make-work. For some reason, Miss Potts really wanted him to do that inventory thing. However...

However.

It wasn't what she said.

Well, mostly it wasn't. Not all what she had said made sense.

For one, Mr Stark was _rarely_ if ever away from Friday's sensors.

Another point was that Friday could easily track specks of dust, so why not a pair of combat boots.

So, Friday being unable to create an inventory was rubbish, also because she had already delivered him a read-made list for around sixty different people all around the company. Which meant she _was_ tracking all that stuff. Yes, there were errors, but mostly they were easily explainable ones, and some were actually more the fault of the human part of the equation and not Friday's.

But that last point rankled. People were ignoring Friday — apart from the whole security thing — because she was an AI. If a purely natural human voice called, others reacted. If an AI voice wanted something... Not so much.

Which also meant a potential security problem, because who knew how long it would take people to just start ignoring Friday, no matter what the topic was?

Anyway, he had two options of how to go about it.

First and foremost, the basic thing to do was of course just to finish what Ms Potts asked him to and get the stupid inventory done - for whatever real reason it was needed. This he would just have to deal with, no matter what. And no matter what Ms Potts needed it for (but at this point he was pretty sure she had some deeper reason for having him do it).

But then there were at least two ways of resolving the problem of Friday not being treated as an actual intelligent being. One would be making people more conscious to the fact that they were ignoring, essentially, a person responsible for a lot in that building. Not that he would want to _scare_ them into obedience, so he wouldn't go for comparisons to Skynet or Matrix— But maybe just point it out to everyone that ignoring an AI that manages your workplace is simply fucking rude.

The second option...

He smiled at one of the cameras.

"Hey, Friday?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"What would you say if I worked on giving you and Karen more emotional voices?"

"Isn't this a bit of an ambitious project for you, Peter?"

"Should I feel insulted with the fact that you don't believe in my programming skills?"

"Peter, what I mean was that you have enough on your plate right now. You would have to spend a lot of time researching the text to speech algorithms if you want to improve what the Boss did."

He nodded slowly.

"Let's work on the list now. First I need this task out of the way. Once I'm done, we can discuss enhancements. It will give me something to do until Miss Potts decides to find me another fascinating job."

He opened the spreadsheet, sighed, stretched and picked up the receiver.

"OK, here comes... total humiliation."

"Colonel Rhodes is the Boss's friend," FRIDAY reminded him kindly. "If you explain what your task is, he should not make you any problems."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. OK. Entering the number and..."

A long signal.

"Hello?"

"Hello, yes," he stammered. "I-I-my name is Peter Parker, and I'm..."

"Oh, you are Tony's intern?"

_What._

_How._

_Where._

_Who._

"Y-yes? H-he told you ab-bout me?"

"He sure did. Could not shut up about you, in fact. Now, what can I do for you, Mr Parker?"

"Ah-I was given this list— well, Miss Potts wanted me to clean Mr Stark's lab and workshop and everything and there is equipment he handed out or— or sent out, or whatever — and I am supposed to track it down, kind of person by person. FRIDAY helped me to make a list of what matches who, and I just need now everyone to confirm and kind of sign off on the lists?"

"My sympathies, kiddo, I always hated the storage duty. Lonely, long hours, boring as hell and makes you feel like a small-time robber, trying to get people to give up their pencils, screwdrivers and welding irons. Or whatever it is that has gone missing from Tony's lab."

Peter gave a wet chuckle.

"It's more in the line of stuff he made for people, so, no welding irons — unless you count the ones I use, but they are in the lab anyway."

"Ah, I see. And what do you need from me?"

Peter squirmed a little bit.

"I just have three things on the list that FRIDAY classified as yours, so I'd need you to tell me if it's true and then I'll send you the summary by e-mail. You'd have to connect to your SI account for this, however, to sign the form."

"Not a problem, I have a StarkPad that's connected to my SI e-mail, so if it works on a pad, I'll have it back with you in minutes."

"Thank you, Mr— Colonel— I mean..."

"Just 'Rhodey' is fine, too."

"I could never...!"

"Colonel, then."

"OK. Colonel. Yeah. So, there is the list... OK, then. Yeah. I mean."

"Just breathe, Peter."

He did. Again. And again.

"Fire away."

"So, there is... a pair of heavy-duty gloves with conductive elements. Black. Elbow-length."

"That's right. Tony made me a pair of these when I complained about the army issue gloves not doing shit— sorry, kid."

"No problem, Colonel, sir," Peter laughed - slightly relaxed for probably the first time in weeks. "Do you still have them?"

"Absolutely! I'd never lose them, they are way too useful. And I know Tony must have worked on them for a few hours—" Colonel Rhodes paused. "Anyway, yeah. I have them, definitely. What else is there? I know I have a ton of stuff Tony made, but some of it was handed over through official channels, some is, well, medical equipment..."

Peter coughed.

"Y-yeah. No, medical is apparently handled by the medbay records. Miss Potts had told me just to deal with the list FRIDAY prepared for me."

"Oh, that's good. FRIDAY is terribly useful when it comes to keeping tracks of everything, right? Tony would have been lost without her and Pepper."

"Well, not everyone thinks so, apparently... Anyway, so, gloves checked. Now, um. Night vision goggles? Is this right? I mean, your suit HUD doesn't do this?"

"Ah, no. That was for suitless exercises. We did that a few times, and since I'm not enhanced, same as Tony, he made us some gear that have us advantage without being actual full suits."

Peter froze, his hand over the keyboard.

"He _cheated_?"

"We called it more 'levelling the playing field' than 'cheating', but that works too, I suppose."

"Seriously?"

"Cap is dangerous in just his gym shorts and a t-shirt while I am only a forty-plus Air Force colonel. I decided that I needed any support I can get, so, yeah. Night vision goggles. Plas-leather finish, a lot of complex electronics inside, allowed us to kick some supersoldier butt."

Peter decided that sipping water while talking to Colonel Rhodes was a risky business.

"So, khh, yeah. This off the list. And the last piece I have here is a—" he frowned. "Oh, actually, this is a piece of your— your third party equipment? That was deposited in the lab? Ah, right, I saw that launcher. A— seriously? An 'Ex-wife'? Who would call a missile that?"

Colonel Rhodes chortled. It had to be a chortle. High rank military personnel did not _giggle,_ after all.

"That's Hammer's. Justin Hammer's. One advice I can give you, kid. If Justin ever promises you a plane, prepare a backup bike."

"That's HammerTech's? But this is shit... Sorry!"

"No, no worries, kid. I won't tell anyone - and anyway, it is shit. The missile was supposed to be the best and strongest on the market but didn't deliver so much as a sparkle. More like 'fizzle'. Tony still keeps it?"

"Yeah, the shoulder mount is now dismantled on one of the tables, with the missile next to it. I had a look at it, it's like, totally unbalanced — I mean, not that I have much experience, but I asked Friday to run a simulation for me and, yeah, this was not going to fly. But... if it's HammerTech, is he allowed to have it?"

Rhodes scoffed.

"They attached it to my suit. Against my wishes, mind you. And since it got attached to Stark's flagship product, which Iron Patriot officially is, he can claim he needs it to reverse the damage the connections did to the armour. Mind you, there weren't that many, but he still went around hitting every lawyer on the head with the papers from his legal department saying he can dissect the missile if he wants to."

"M-hm. So, yeah, all checks out. I will send you the form and everything, so you can just click the link and sign off. If there are any problems, my phone number is in the e-mail, so you can call me, I will walk you through."

"Not a problem, kiddo. It will be back in your inbox in no time."

"Thank you, Mr— Colonel Rhodes, sir. It was a pleasure."

"It was very nice to meet you too, Peter. Even if only by phone."

"Yeah... I mean, thank you, sir."

"See you around, Parker."

Peter felt all his tension suddenly disappearing, leaving him droopy and limp. Thank goodness it was only one person! If he had anyone else on the list as important as Colonel Rhodes, he would have never made it through all these calls...!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments and enthusiasm for such a little story ;)  
> Please, if you notice any jarring errors or problems or weirdly ending sentences (that might have been victims of my rewriting stuff), let me know in the comments. I'll correct everything :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team learns some harsh truths.

"This is shit," Natasha dropped her lunch tray next to Sam's. "I've been waiting at my phone for the entire morning. Did the kid call you?"

"Yeah," Steve was carefully avoiding everyone's gaze. "He did."

"And?"

"And we went through the list."

"He never called me, though," Clint provided, sounding thoroughly annoyed. "And Wanda says she never heard from him either."

"Yeah," Steve speared a bit of chicken from his plate. "Probably because he didn't have time."

They all turned towards him, eyes wide.

"What?"

"We went over my list. It took over an hour. Maybe closer to an hour and a half."

"W-what?"

"He had _everything_ on the list. And I mean, _everything_. Guns. Pieces of the suit. Ammo. Shoes. Who lists bloody shoes on an inventory of a _lab_?"

"When you have reinforced heavy duty shoes created by a real-life mad genius scientist, the shoes get listed. Hey, even normal combat boots are all inventoried in the army, so why complain about shoes now?" Sam pointed a knife at him. "How come you are even surprised?"

Steve shrugged.

"I— I thought Tony didn't care. He never—"

" _He_ might not, but it's Pepper who ordered this cleanup. She is the CEO and she has to run a tight ship or this will all come apart, especially since the moment Tony is out sick, people start trying to get at her. And— I've actually heard her talking to the boy today. Apparently she is friends with his aunt and she didn't sound happy with him. The aunt promises to be a real hardass, too. Seriously," Natasha looked quite glum, poking her risotto with the fork. "I hope you managed to give the kid all the information you needed, because he looks like he is in deep shit by now anyway. Pepper was laying into him for something, ordering him to sit and do what she told him. Sounded pretty serious."

"I wonder if the kid is really unruly or if it's just Pepper's temper," Wanda mused, plopping down with her own tray. "I mean, that woman must have some kind of outlet for all that stress of dealing with the shareholders, the board and other stuffy old men, right?"

"She probably yells at Tony most of the time," Clint pointed out. "She can't do it now, so the kid gets scolded..."

"And if that's true — however I didn't hear Pepper actually _shouting_ at the boy and I don't believe she would — I'd rather we didn't give her any reasons to be angry, so you should all finish quickly and go back, be at your phones. However annoying it sounds."

Natasha levelled a heavy gaze at everyone.

"You all should just redirect your desk phones to your mobiles," Wanda waved hers in the air. "I mean, mine..."

It rang.

"Oh. Well, it's time for me," she rolled her eyes and stabbed the screen. "Yeah, that's Maxine. Yeah. Sure. Yep. Um... Yes, red gloves. Yes. Perfect working condition. M-hm. Vest, right. That's right. Shin guards... Give me a second. Shin guards... Not that I recall, no. But I can check in m— at the lab. Yeah. Uhm. Ones with inserts, yes. Three pairs. Yeah, I have them. Yep, correct. That, too. And yes. Well, apart from these shin guards... what colour were they? Oh, no. Then definitely not me. Not green. Yes, not a problem... Yeah, just e-mail me that, I'll update it for you later today. Mhm. Definitely. Bye."

She shrugged, walking back to the table.

"Apparently some of us don't use that much tech, so I didn't have to spend an hour and a half on talking him through who knows how many crazy details. Just the reinforced clothes and the vest. So, no problem at all. Not like I use a gun or something, so no guns, no ammunition," she pulled up a chair again. "Steve, you OK?"

Everyone turned to watch their Captain, who was sitting there, eyes on his plate, fork hanging in the air.

"I'm not sure," he admitted finally. "I mean... How much do we know about running the company?"

"Nothing," Clint mumbled around his piece of meat. "Nat knows the most, she used to work in Legal department here."

"Mostly carried around a case of papers and tried to look vaguely busy," she explained quickly. "But I remember stuff, yeah. Why?"

"Is it—" Steve gestured around them. "Is this normal? I mean... Other employers, what are the conditions they give? Free food? Company cars? Cell phones?"

"Cell phones are pretty much a standard now. In some places everyone gets a company phone, if they work anywhere above a factory line position. Free food in cafeteria - it happens. Some companies have snack bars, some offer just fruit. Company cars are for management and top tiers, usually. Well, sales department, too. And consultants. Basically... depends. Why?"

"I'm just trying to put _us_ into context of— of the company. We aren't employees, we aren't— what are we?"

"The Avengers, duh," Clint looked unperturbed. "I mean, we are like part of marketing, I suppose. Commercial that pays for itself, or something."

"Actually, it's a commercial for which Stark pays from his own pocket," Natasha corrected. "All our expenses are billed to his private account."

The silence at the table was rather icy.

"What, don't tell me you guys didn't know," she shrugged. "What do you think he is doing, scamming his own company for this? One of the reasons the kid is doing inventory, I suppose. Stark has to reimburse the stores for what he used up, so Pepper needs to know what became part of the Avengers gear, what went into the suits and what was used for legit SI business. Stark probably has FRIDAY monitoring the labs, but maybe some records were unclear, or the AI doesn't want to cooperate with the kid. Why the sudden attack of doubts, Steve?"

He shrugged (and it was an impressive movement in and of itself).

"The form showed me the expenses, like it did for Sam. And I understand, we won't have to pay him back, but just— looking at the total sum made me uncomfortable. And now that Nat says Tony is paying for all this privately—" he looked away. "I think we should. I don't know. Tone it down a bit. Even if it was SI, we should, but now—"

Clint pushed away his empty plate.

"Not sure why we should. He can afford it, right? And what am I supposed to reduce - shoot my bow less?"

"Your shooting gloves. You've lost seven pairs in the last quarter."

"Come on, gloves? Like, what is it, pocket change for him?"

"Does it mean we should be—" Steve shook his head. "Wasting it? Throwing it away, just because our _sponsor_ has supposedly unlimited resources? I didn't know the scale of it and—"

He trailed off and focused on his rapidly cooling lunch.

"And what?"

Steve glanced at Clint at that aggressive question.

"And maybe I'd have paid more attention before, if I had known how much _private_ money we are simply blowing away by not paying attention to what we are doing."

"Stop being so _pompous_ , it can't be that much..."

"Wait until you get the kid's call."

Natasha sighed and finished her meal quickly, if without much enthusiasm. She, better than anyone else in the group, knew how much money Stark Industries had poured into a variety of initiatives related to the Avengers, saving the world in general and Captain America in particular. If Steve ever saw the yearly costs of Howard Stark's obsession with finding him, he would dig up the old man, bring him back to life and stare at him with reproach until Stark Senior turned into dust again. There were whole families living comfortably from the money Howard Stark had paid teams who were searching for the downed airplane and his friend, but it didn't mean it was a good thing for the company.

On the other hand — not that Clint losing his gloves wasn't annoying, considering that Stark made them himself in his workshop — but cost-wise they, as a team, were nowhere close to the top 5 expenses that Stark was paying for from his own pocket. His personal lawyer team was probably on the second place, first being 'whatever art, shoes or buildings Pepper can dream of' and on third - the suits. Fourth was Stark's new weird hobby, as the man had replaced his previous obsession with cars with an obsession with textiles and until-now not used polymers purchased in curiously large quantities.

Fifth still being the cars.

However, of all the things he involved himself in, at least as far as Natasha knew, Tony's personal investment in Avengers' tech was only topped by his investment in _his_ personal tech. Time, emotion and intellectual effort summed together into a hefty debt that the team was not conscious of. Apart from her, that was. And even she was not exactly perfectly sure how much of Tony's direct emotional involvement SHIELD, Iron Man and then the team had been given over the years, considering the times when he was 'flying solo' and dying, just-working-with-Rhodey and not dying, maybe-working-with her and very much not dying, working with the team and not dying (still) but occasionally flying into a wormhole (and on the next day, gathering everyone's broken gear and returning it as good as new, shiny and perfect, piece by piece)... And then working with the team when the team was not exactly working with him, but still somehow expecting him to participate, which was what led to Germany, which in turn...

She wasn't proud of what had happened, but she was more than happy that the team had managed to talk like grownups and get a solution to that more than sucky situation before it escalated. More than it had on the airport, that is. She wasn't happy that it had happened at Rhodey's expense.

Ever since Germany, Steve and Tony were not really on speaking terms. She could speak to both, Rhodey kept with Tony, Sam and Clint stuck with Steve. Wanda stuck with her. It was a chain of people not really communicating properly.

At least whatever the kid was doing with that inventory was a way to remind all of them that their sponsor and teammate were one and the same and that he was a human being — and that they had been mooching off Tony for way too long. Maybe the kid would make them see it. From the mouths of the babes, indeed.

She hoped she could convince them to cooperate and make sure that he didn't get fired in the meanwhile because he pissed Pepper off too much by not being able to interrogate a few so-called superheroes about their gear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter calls Nat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. My laptop decided to resist and I could not get this re-read an corrected yesterday. Fortunately now it's all working and I could post it :)

Her own call came when she was in the middle of actually for once doing paperwork. She knew that Steve felt guilty (she still didn't know what the total for his gear was, but she would learn it soon, he was soft like this and would cave in soon) and she felt a tiny little twinge of conscience, too, so she decided to adult for some time and catch up with reports she had been neglecting for weeks now. Mostly SHIELD, but considering how close everything was now - with Stark, Hill and Fury coordinating on so many topics - a lot of it was SI-related. And, since she was the one to have been employed in the company at some point, she was the go-to person for resolving any issues that might arise in relation to their paperwork, variety of permits, authorisations, agreements and what not.

As if she had been actually involved in the company as such, and not just in watching Tony and his nearest coworkers.

It was worrying that so much of the paperwork had made its way to her desk so recently anyway, as it seemed a logical assumption that a lot of it had been usually resolved by Tony. That meant that Stark was not only paying for them, designing their stuff but also dealing with the redtape bullshit that she was now presented with.

She tapped the top file on the heap and considered her options.

Clint was useless when it came to paperwork. But he would have to sign off his own arrow usage from now on.

Steve was probably going to have to dust off his old Army skills, since he had to have some experience as a unit commander when it came to stores and tracking. SOME.

Sam definitely would be able to take some load off her shoulders.

Maybe Wanda, if they motivated her enough...

She reached for her cell when the landline rang.

As in, rang. Like, "ring ring", old style.

"Natalie Rushman speaking."

"O-oh. Hello, Ms Rushman, my-my name is Peter P-Parker," the kid sounded apprehensive.

Natasha grimaced, knowing that their behaviour, as a team, had not been exemplary, and so they had probably added to the kid's anxiety.

"Hello, Mr Parker. What can I help you with?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you. I'm making an inventory of Mr Stark's labs and I'm now tracking a list of equipment that had been provisionally assigned to you. Since our AIs can give me only partial confirmation of the contents and that it had been most probably assigned to you or your office, I will need your verbal and then digital confirmation of the fact."

"No problem, absolutely. Go on then."

"Ok. Thank you."

The boy coughed, clicked something on the keyboard and then he smiled, judging by the way his voice changed.

"You use a lot of varied electric implements, Ms Rushman?"

"A bunch, yes. I probably won't be able to tell you the details until I'm in my lab but if you read them aloud, I can at least knock some off the list."

'Her lab' being the armoury on the training floor, but the boy didn't need to know that, did he?

"OK," he took a breath. "I have here an entry for twenty-five high-voltage low-current handheld dev... Twenty-five miniature tasers, right?"

"That would be correct, definitely. I think I've had more, but most were probably logged when I received them."

"Do you have any of them right now and could confirm that they have serial numbers attached?"

"Serial numb...? OK, I didn't know Stark marked them with serial numbers... Give me a second..."

"Sure, Ms Rushman."

She dug in the purse she used around the office and pulled out one of the Widow Bites.

"Where would it... Ah, I see. I think I have the serial number on this one, actually."

"Oh, good. Can you tell me what it is? I'd check if what I have here is in the same format? I mean, it should be, but who knows how they were labelled..."

"It's N-R-b-w-2016-09-221.1."

"The format matches and I have this one on the list to be confirmed, so I'm marking this one as in your possession. Do you want me to send the detailed list over so you can mark the ones you have at your leisure, or would you rather go over it with me when you are at the lab?"

"Just send this one as it is, I'll open it on my tablet and fill it in as I go over to the lab, it will be faster. Is there anything else?"

"Well, these tasers come in one... two... five different models, to the total of almost a hundred, so, they make most of the list. There are three handguns and assorted ammo for them, fifteen throwing knives... Oh, and a set of shurikens."

_Shurik... Ah, throwing stars._

"I'm afraid I don't have any shurikens. I used to use them for certain..." she froze up. How to explain to a kid why a lab analyst needs this kind of stuff?

"Sure, just, check if you still have any, OK? Or, if you are not using some pieces of the equipment you were handed, Mr Stark would probably be happy to see them returned, so if you still have stuff that doesn't work or just isn't applicable to your research anymore, you can drop this by the top lab and I will put it in the inventory and get it deposited back into the lab storage."

"I'll have a look, sure. Anything else?"

Peter went through the list of common clothing and other everyday supplies they had taken for granted - most of her specialised weaponry she had more or less in front of her mind, but then there was such a huge amount of stuff she forgot - the outfits, the Kevlar inserts, the variety of throwing knives and other things that Stark had, in fact, put together for her, if not from scratch, then by adjusting existing equipment to her body size, fingers length and grip. She had these gloves that looked perfectly normal but had enhanced gripping surface on the inside that allowed her to catch better onto rope and climb easier - almost like Velcro, but much finer, much quieter and more effective. When not in use, the glove was indistinguishable from a normal piece of clothing, and it was activated by tapping a specific spot on the cuff...

"Ooh, you are testing them?" the boy sighed. "Are they working OK for you?"

Wait, what?

"Sure, they work fine, kid. I'll... Well, if you want to see them in use..."

She couldn't offer that, could she? The kid would recognise her at some point...

"Oh, no, I know how they work. I made the gripping cloth. Just wanted to know if they work out OK for someone actually using them in real life. What do you apply them to?"

"Mostly pulling on stuff..." Natasha trailed off. " _You_ made it?"

"Well, I worked out the construction of the connective hairs that make them. They are covered with a special polymer that makes them, how to say it, well, smooth? Like teensy weensy octopus suckers, a lot of them at the same time? There is the activation button there, right? It makes low-grade current run through the entire structure, making them stand up straight, which makes them active. When you press again, cut off the current, the hairs lie limp."

"Ah, so this is what happens. I was curious, but Mr Stark was pretty busy, he just pressed them on me and told me to come back with feedback. I didn't have a chance, because it was just before he had been hurt..."

She knew she was babbling, but "Natalie" tended to be a bit of a chatterbox, and her tongue totally could do that on autopilot.

"Yeah, I know. I know. There has been a lot going on in the lab just before that mission and..." the boy sniffed. "Yeah. So, just for one piece of good news, can I mark the result of your tests as positive? What kind of surfaces did you check it on?"

_Uh?_

"Metal pipe... Well, handles, so metal and plastic, a lot. Some rope I needed to... to pull... Big metal objects, so things I can't just grip, but managed to catch with the inside of my hand and it was good enough to pull them."

The door on that last mission, with no handle on the inside, but still, it gave in when Natasha applied her gloves and _pulled_ with them. But she didn't need to tell the kid that, did she?

"Wood? Fabric?"

"Didn't test it yet, but I can check next time and let you know."

"Thank you, Ms Rushman! This will be my next science project for the school fair, so I'd rather have as much input as possible. I have to work on potential industry applications and solutions to problems that may come from using this material."

_Definitely a mini-Tony after all._

Natasha quickly recategorised Peter from "coffee fetcher" to "little kiddie genius", which probably meant that he had been actually working with Stark in the lab and not only sitting forlornly outside, gazing at his so-called boss and fetching him coffee, as they had imagined previously.

That would require further investigation, definitely.

"Anything else that you may have for me?" she heard herself asking, crisp and professional.

"Just... Ah, shoes, soft, woven with..." he trailed off. "Oh, woven with Kevlar... Nice. Why do you need bulletproof shoes? No offence, ma'am."

"Bulletproof... Ah. I just drop stuff a lot and hurt my toes. Mr Stark probably thought it was a hilarious idea for me to have a pair of bulletproofs sitting in my wardrobe."

"Ah, I see. I sometimes wish _my_ shoes were spanner- and hammer-proof. Way too many bruised toes, as I am. Mister Stark says he'll cut my access off if I manage to give myself another bruise when he's not looking..."

_So, helping in the lab, working individually, too. Not always with Stark to guard and direct him about everything._

"Yes, all lab techs probably wish for something like that. OK, what's next?"

"Eye cove... Ah, no, these are still in the lab. Marked as to be delivered, well, two weeks after that last mission..."

_Oooh, Tony. A surprise?_

"Well, he didn't really tell me anything about them," she trailed off. "Are they red?"

"Don't have a photo here, I'm afraid, but by the description, they are supposed to be anti-polarising, anti-reflex and UV-protecting, additional layer for non-visible spectrum... Yeah, red, according to the spec."

"He's been joking about them, I suppose..."

_"I'll get you a customised pair like mine," Tony shrugged, putting on his glasses and blinking slowly. "After this kind of blast, your eyes will be sensitive for ages. And if you squint, you will get crows feet."_

_"I moisturise," she grimaced against the pain stabbing deep in her eyeballs. "I don't get crows feet, smile lines or wrinkles. Unlike some old men who should make sure not to expose themselves to the sun too much..."_

_"Oh, remember to tell the Cap about UV. He needs to check if serum is working on these bad bad UVA and UVB rays, just in case it turns out he needs to start buying high-factor creams, just like the rest of us, mortals."_

"MS RUSHMAN?"

"Sorry, Peter. Yeah, he alluded to them recently when we were discussing skin and eyes... never mind. Is that all?"

"Yeah, I can send you the full list in a mooommeeeent..." he trailed off funnily. "OK, done, on its way to you. Mark the tasers that you can find by the number, but if you have any apart from the ones I listed, make photos or retype their IDs in the comment field, I'll match them with storage records later."

"Not a problem. I should have them done by... well, in two days? It may take a while to hunt them all down."

"Not a problem. I'll tell Ms Potts your part is in progress. Thank you so much!"

The kid was a sweetie, definitely. A sweet, innocent, helpful and smart boy who had apparently been helping Tony devise their weapons having no idea what he was doing. Not a whit.

Tony was either more shit than they ever suspected, or...

...or a better man, considering he didn't tell the kid what his things were being used for?

Which was worse, sullying that sweet innocence with knowledge that whatever he had worked on was used to kill people or using his inventions without his consent?

Probably just not turning kid's work into weapons and armour.

But then Natasha would not have had her grippy gloves and would have had much harder time getting out of that bunker last month and...

Well. Better for Natasha to have them, still not so good for Tony to make use of them, yes? Moral dilemma of a modern superhero.

After a few minutes, the account linked to her SI identity pinged and she opened the form with a sigh. OK. Superhero, office scale time. She would be the kid's most friendly respondent. After all, Sam already did his thing, Steve and Wanda too, so it left Clint.

And Clint was nearly guaranteed to be an asshole about it.

She had never before really considered coming down hard on Clint about being a dick towards Stark, but now, faced with all that youthful helpfulness and initiative and what not, she just couldn't think about Peter calling Clint without a small cringe. That would not go easily, especially since Clint hated peppy people like Peter, despised Stark (for all his wealth and for lording it over them from time to time) and would most probably display his unhappiness by being obnoxious.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Pepper.

Peter clicked idly through the forms returned from all over the company. There were still a few people he hadn't managed to reach, since they were on vacations or... whatever. There were a few forms pending, like the one with dozens and dozens of tasers that was now with the nice Ms Rushman — poor woman, having to check all these SNs by hand. He had almost offered to help her, but then, she volunteered to do it in two days, so it didn't seem like a hardship to her.

"Take a break, Peter."

Ms Potts was leaning on the entrance to his private little cubicle.

"I'm OK, thanks."

"Take a break and walk with me. We have to discuss things."

_Shit. Shit shit shit._

_What did I do?_

"Everything is fine," Ms Potts was apparently reading his mind. "What I need you to do is to just take a walk, we'll have lunch and then we'll maybe, but just maybe, take a lift to floor 60."

_Floor 60. 60._

_Medical!_

He locked his computer with alacrity and shouldered his new backpack (bought by Ms Potts as a replacement for his dirty tattered one - she had tutted over the old one a lot!) - it was a reassuring weight on his back - his summer work textbook, the Spider-man suit and the lanyard with the proper SI badge (also Ms Potts' work, since Mr Stark had never remembered to have one made for him). It also marked him as 'that kid' when people tried to identify him, so it was almost like a badge by itself. After the first two attempts by the security team on the ground floor, when men twice his size tried to stop him from entering _despite_ the badge and the fact that Friday had identified him, Happy had made a small meeting and instructed everyone to keep their hands off 'the kid', or Ms Potts would have Words With Them.

After nearly a month that had passed since then, some of the guards still reminded others that "the kid with the funny backpack" was to be let through.

Funny.

Hah.

Ms Potts had a sense of humor.

She had bought him an Iron Man facemask bag. With a reflexive strip and a chest clasp and a waist clasp, all proper for a well-balanced backpack. This was one backpack he was _not_ going to just randomly web to a wall or a dumpster. Actually, it would be funny to see the reactions of people seeing Spider-Man swinging about the city with an Iron Man backpack, right?

"Peter!"

He jerked back to the present and hurried up, catching up to Ms Potts quickly.

####

Lunch in the cafeteria was included in his internship conditions, as Ms Potts explained during his first "office" week. In the lab, Mister Stark fed him whatever they decided to order on a particular day, but when working with Ms Potts, he ate with the general body of employees. He had his food credits account like all others (unlike the others, his was unlimited) and he could order anything he wanted, up to and including taking another box of food (or two, or three) back to his desk, for a mid-afternoon snack. He had to admit, it was probably more rational than ordering pizza or Chinese to the lab, but, in itself, much less fun.

On the other hand, sometimes it felt as if Ms Potts did exactly the same thing she tried to prevent her fiance from doing - missed her meals. And so, just like Mister Stark, she remembered that lunches existed when it was time to feed Peter - and then she would eat, too. It made him feel somewhat useful for her, even if he was basically useless in all other aspects.

"I thought he was not supposed to get any visitors for a few more days?" he asked softly as they queued to the salad bar - Ms Potts always insisted on him getting something green, whatever main course he chose.

"Well, they said 'limited contact' today morning, so as long as he doesn't try to sit up or do any work, and _you_ wear a sterile cover, you can sit with him for a few minutes. FRIDAY will be monitoring him all the time and at any sign of fatigue she will call the doctor."

"So no shop talk?"

"No shop talk."

He picked some cherry tomatoes that looked more firm than others and added a handful of olives and cucumber slices. Crunchy food was good. He avoided limp-looking lettuce and moved towards the bowl carrot sticks.

"Let's sit on the side and you tell me how it went today," she pointed to the table by the window. "I think I've seen you talk to a lot of people over the last few days."

"Yeah, it seems to be picking up. Colonel Rhodes was very nice about it last week, and so have most of the people since. Even the ones that were kind of boorish last week, suddenly turned out to be OK and just went through the lists with me. Ms Rushman promised to send her form back by tomorrow, since she has to check serial numbers on these tasers she is testing... What?"

"You've... I mean, Natalie? You've spoken to Natalie Rushman already?"

"Yeah...? She was OK? Kind of funny, went all silent in the middle of the sentence, something about glasses and skin, not sure what she meant. Why? Do you know her?"

Ms Potts shrugged.

"She used to work in the Legal department, but she switched since. I think she is now working on some kind of self-defence program, so she tests the tasers and all this personal safety equipment on herself."

"A lawyer, turned scientist?"

"More like a practical researcher. She experiments a lot with them, modelling real-life situations with her team. She is very... dedicated to the idea of a woman being able to defend herself from any kind of danger."

"Whoa. MJ would have adored her, I guess. She is very into the self-defence program at school... but it's pretty lousy. She would never admit it, but she fangirls Black Widow a lot, you know? I mean, not that she doesn't fangirl you, but it's like, her official thing. Women in power positions, all that jazz. That Black Widow thing is the shameful secret she tries to keep very, very secret."

"So she wouldn't appreciate getting a photo signed by the woman herself for her birthday?"

"I'd be dead within minutes," Peter warned. "She only told me this by accident and she had been very tired at the time. If you value my continued existence, find something less... direct. Please."

Ms Potts smiled and took a bite of her salad.

"I'm not promising anything."

The view of the city outside was distracting, and the conversation doubly so, so before he knew, they were done, he was feeling quite full (a common feeling now that Ms Potts made sure he knew he had open access to the cafeteria - Mr Stark had never sounded quite specific about that, so Peter had never ventured to check on his own before) and it was time to visit his mentor in the medical floor, for the first time since the "accident" (press official version), "bloody blunder of a mission" (Ms Potts' version) and "unexpected opposite forces configuration" (version from the internal Avengers report that he had wheedled out of Friday).

It had been a tough, anxiety-inducing, up to stomach-churning-with-fear month. Five weeks, to be exact. The mission had been a bust, the recon and intel the Avengers were given resulted in them being ambushed from an unexpected direction, Mr Stark was hit with an EMP that had nearly fried the entire armour, injuring him severely and burning a significant surface of his skin. Although Peter - or Captain America - would have, and in fact in Peter's case had, gotten over a similar burn in no more than a day or two, Mr Stark, being a baseline human... did not. In fact, if Ms Potts' mutterings were correct, his recovery was further hampered by the honking huge hole in his chest, where the Arc Reactor used to be. Peter could estimate quite well - knowing rather precisely how human body was made inside (biology lessons, own study and a variety of related documentaries) - how deeply the container with the Arc Reactor sat in Mr Stark's body and how many other organs were affected by its existence and subsequent removal (list started with lungs, went to stomach, other parts of digestive tract and breathing apparatus and ended with "and probably pressed on his spine this way"), and so he understood that body which had been exposed to extreme conditions and had such handicaps weighing it down would not cooperate quite as well as a healthy baseline human would.

In short, the general consensus was that it was a bleeding miracle Mister Stark was still alive. Peter concurred, having had a close-up view of how it all went down, since he had swung in to join the battle mere minutes before Iron Man got shot.

He swallowed against the sudden feel of nausea that gripped him when he recalled the image— _No._

They took the private elevator that Peter normally used to get to the lab, but Ms Potts asked Friday for floor 60. Peter fleetingly wondered if his normal access also included the medical floors, but... there would be time for experimenting later. Possibly when Happy was free to rescue him in case stuff went wrong.

Apparently all that 'growing up' meant not only gaining more inches (a few... one... one inch...) but also learning to be more cautious. Peter sometimes felt so _old_ when he stopped himself from following one of his crazy impulses.

Mister Stark seemed to have infected him with maybe not _responsibility_ as such, since Tony "I am Iron Man" Stark was not exactly the correct person to be a role model for responsible teenagers (or anyone for that matter), but with the idea of only risking his skin when there was backup available, since Peter _was_ the most vulnerable physically, even of the city vigilantes, and no, Ned was _not_ considered a backup if there was nobody in a suit he could call in for help. It had been one of the first things Ms Potts asked him for, stressing carefully that it was for Mr Stark's peace of mind. _Don't get into anything more exciting than street level problems. Grannies, kittens, lost tourists, stolen bikes. Please don't chase any bank robbers, especially if they are equipped with alien weapons. Don't go out patrolling. Tony would never forgive me if you got hurt on my watch._

And he promised.

And he managed to keep the promise (maybe with the exception of that one bank robber who had been an idiot who also stole a bike and ran over a group of tourists - Peter felt justified in chasing him and webbing him to a bridge, stolen money, bike and all). So he would be responsible, adult and reliable and he would _not_ go exploring the floors.

Well, unless Friday allowed him to.

And Friday seemed to like him more than ever before. So...

The door pinged and Peter's senses were invaded by the smells, sounds and images of a typical hospital environment. Machine beeps, people walking, harsher than usual cleaning solutions, lights that hit his eyes at unexpected angles...

He had never liked hospitals, even though May worked in one.

But it was Mister Stark he was going to see, so he took a deep breath (his tongue tingled with the taste of the antiseptic in the air) and followed Ms Potts out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys. Real life got to me, fell asleep before I managed to post.

"Tony is supposedly feeling better."

Steve looked up at Natasha, who however did not seem very _happy_.

"I hear a 'but'."

"They are saying at least three weeks more and even then he can't do anything taxing. We are down third of our aerial support and we are stuck on stuff that Tony had in his queue for improvement or repair. He had even finished some of that stuff, at least my glasses, since the kid asked me about them, but never got around to handing them out."

"So... Three more weeks?" Clint sounded nonplussed. "Seriously, how the fuck long does it take to get over some burns?"

"As long as it takes."

Sam's voice was harsh, but it seemed not to register with the archer, who continued to complain.

"I mean, he is kind of a whiny shit, I suppose. He's never actually fighting by himself, never getting his hands properly dirty... Nat, what the hell?"

Natasha's reaction might have been a tad too harsh, but Steve did not fault her the least. He wasn't exactly the fan of the "Stark flair", but hell, Tony got the job done, never shirked when asked to join the fight, ran a huge, complex company, did the technical support thing for all of them and, on top of it, apparently mentored a kid who was just as crazy about inventing as Tony himself.

They had put the story together from all the pieces, especially what Natasha had learnt during her two calls (second was, as she explained to the boy, to verify some of the partial serial numbers on destroyed 'mini tasers') and with every new fact they liked the kid more. And if the boy had attracted Tony's attention enough to be involved in actually working on the Avengers' gear (albeit unknowingly), he had to be something special.

Clint complaining about Tony was old news by now, but it rankled more than before, especially with their newly gained knowledge about Tony's direct personal involvement in their finances — that is, the fact that Tony basically paid for everything for the team.

Natasha slapping her old partner was unusual enough for the man to shut up for once and cease his remarks. Steve was very glad she had reacted the way she did, since he had been sorely tempted to lecture Clint on the virtue of gratefulness to one's host, sponsor and rather self-sacrificing teammate.

"I think I've heard more complaints about Stark from you than whining about shit from Stark," Natasha said flatly. "Which means I'm over my quota of bullshit from you and so, you'd better shut up and think very carefully what you want to say before you open your pie hole again. I love you like a brother, Clint, but I will kick your butt the next time you forget to consider who exactly is paying for the food in your fridge, the clothes you lose all over the city and your bloody arrows."

"Also, Tony's..." Sam trailed off. "That level of burns? They can _hope_ he will be out in three weeks. I'd give him six and no touching anything heavier than a newspaper for another two months at least. But hey, I'm just a dumb paratrooper, so I will accept an archer's superior knowledge of burns treatment, of course. It's not like I've rescued and treated burn victims at any point in my career."

"Oh, so you two are turning Team Tony now?" Clint grimaced. "Seriously, though. Everyone is treating him like he's made of glass..."

Steve had had enough. Quite enough.

"There is no 'Team Tony' or any other. There is just the team," he said coldly. "If you can't work with that, tough. I don't know why you insist on complaining about Tony, since your alternative accommodations is whatever SHIELD can possibly set up in one of their run-down safehouses, but you will desist, right now. Tony has been severely hurt and if you can't understand the simple truth being told by the doctors, his fiancee and Sam - that he needs time to heal - maybe you should reevaluate your position. Or I will reevaluate your position in the team."

Clint frowned and puffed out his chest.

"And what? Kick me off?"

"He will, and I will support him."

Natasha was standing next to Steve, arms folded in an aggressive stance.

"Nat?"

"You are being a dick, Clint," she said curtly. "I told you to think before you speak, and this is your second and last warning. If you don't stop, you'll be removed from authorisation to the gym floor, communal kitchen and, basically, anywhere but your bedroom."

A pout on a grown man was nowhere as adorable as on a child. Clint managed to look like a disgruntled teenager being scolded by his parents, and Steve dearly wished for Tony's presence right then and there, since Tony always had something appropriately snarky to say.

"I'm just saying."

"And we've already heard you dozens and dozens of times," Natasha was obviously fed up with the whole thing. "Shut up, or get out, Clint."

"Shutting up, shutting up," the man groused and turned towards his room, still muttering under his breath.

Natasha collapsed on the couch.

"What got _his_ panties in a twist?" Sam joined them, taking a low chair.

"He's feeling permanently inferior to Tony and he has an overwhelming need to prove that Tony is less of a superhero than him. It's some kind of shit from back when we all started. Clint doesn't like Tony's posturing and Tony doesn't like Clint's opinions, especially the mock-whispered ones. And as Clint's partner, I can honestly declare that this is fucking up their ability to cooperate. And my ability to refrain from smacking Clint upside his stupid head."

"No smacking," Steve sighed. "How sick is Tony, really? Nat?"

"They say he has no open wounds and no risk of infections. And that his lungs remain clean. His heart has taken a beating, since the current he had been hit with was way too high for a baseline human to survive. Tony's suit has dealt with most of it, but that only lowered it slightly, down to non-lethal range, but still, quite dangerous. Pepper says he was allowed to take the oxygen mask off for a half an hour today, but got overtired nearly immediately. By reading the news. On his tablet."

"I remember feeling that shitty a few times in my life..." Steve sighed. "Asthma nearly did me in once or twice, and there was no actual working cure at the time. One thing for sure - none of us wants Tony to try to cut the treatment short for any reason, right?"

"I think we can all agree that it's not something we would choose as a valid option," Sam grunted. "We have to make sure there are no signals about any kind of requests or complaints getting to him, so we don't risk him trying to work from his bed - or even worse, sneaking out of medical and going to his workshop."

"Yup," Nat clapped her hands. "I'll talk to Pepper to see what we can do to reassure Tony we're dealing with stuff, so that he isn't disturbed. You two, ensure that Clint doesn't explode when the kid calls, since he seems to be pretty fired up about Tony, and the kid is Tony's intern and assistant and whatever, so Clint just may be nasty to him to get back at Tony by proxy. And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

They wouldn't, indeed. It was bad enough that the kid was somehow in trouble with Pepper, who was watching him all day as he worked, and would probably be in trouble with Tony the moment the man found out about the changes in his cherished lab. Adding Clint's brand of nasty was way too much. Despite what they had expected of a person who worked with Stark on daily basis, the boy seemed rather delicate and innocent, exposing him to anything like Clint at his most infuriating...

Steve nodded.

"I just hope Tony gets better soon," he added. "I have the worst memories from being stuck in bed like this, even if I've never gotten _burned_. He must be itching to do something, I suppose."

"If he doesn't put off 'doing something' he may end up worse off than he is," Sam warned them seriously. "Nerve damage, movement limitations..."

"Pepper has probably sicced FRIDAY on to him," Natasha reminded him. "She would be tracking his every eye movement and she would know he was planning trouble before he consciously _starts_ planning trouble."

####

Clint had, in fact, been a dick to Peter. Sam had heard only the end of the conversation, since apparently Wanda had managed to get Clint's desk phone redirected to his mobile and so poor Peter had caught Clint with his call somewhere outside the office.

What he _did_ witness was pretty unpleasant.

What Natasha saw was even worse, since she was sitting in Pepper's office at that very moment, going over some permits that had accumulated and had to be approved or rejected once the financial team was done with them.

Peter - as seen from the corner of her eye - had started the conversation quite cheerfully - picking the number out on a small desk phone and smiling at the screen in front of him. But then, his face fell. His lower lip wobbled. He frowned.

And then Natasha could not focus on Pepper anymore and then Pepper was looking where Natasha was looking, frowning, too. And Pepper was looking down at the papers, at Natasha, at the papers. Sighing.

"Could you come back with this on Monday? Or, leave them here, I'll review them and sort it all out. It should be pretty easy."

"Sure. Sure. I will..." she made an uncertain nod to the elevators.

"Yes. Than you, Nat. It's..."

Peter's eyes were wide as he was obviously trying to interrupt the person on the phone - the glass muffled his voice, but Natasha could make out 'but, Mister Carlton...!' (since what worked for most of the other - switching parts of name and surname around - turned Clint Barton into Bart Clinton, Hawkeye had had to be slightly more creative) - and she saw Pepper nervously looking at the boy.

She left, quickly. To find Clint and tear his head off, if she could.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After some rearrangement and rebuilding of the following text, I updated the chapter count.

"He works for Stark, he should be tougher than that."

"Calling him an annoying pissant of an intern was uncalled for," Steve said very, very calmly and Natasha admired his self-restraint. She could see his hands trembling at his sides and she was very much tempted to do something about her partner herself. If only she knew how to get to him and make him wrap his mind around the idea that—

"Dude, seriously, you fucked up," Sam sounded disappointed in a way even Steve would have been challenged to top. "I mean, I knew that you were kind of dim, but— That was douchey. To the max."

"Kid was bothering me, calling my arrows 'impact-propelled delivery vectors', what kind of language even is this?"

"English. And you know it, because this is the official inventory entry for your arrows. Or, you would know it, if you had ever in your life properly looked at the papers you were signing."

"Seriously, Nat? This?"

"You also told him not to ask you any more idiotic questions and to not bother sending you his stupid survey," Sam pointed out sharply. "Which goes completely against what we were talking about. All of us went through the same, even Steve, who probably loses more pieces of equipment than you use up arrows, simply because his gear wears out _and_ we both shoot our guns. Which means a metric shitton of ammo. Which _I_ had been reporting all that time, mind you, so I had less on my list than anyone, I think."

"He was just ashamed to admit how many pairs of gloves he had lost," Natasha explained to the room in general coldly. "Because he has a worse track history for that than Lila, and that's saying something."

"I just—"

"And what would you feel if someone had done that to Lila, hm?" she stepped closer, crowding him in. "Imagine that, Lila gets her first small job, an internship - maybe in a local paper, or a copy point or whatever. And her boss is at odds with someone else in the shop, so that other person nags at Lila, or shouts at her. And then you get a phone call, because your little girl can't understand what happened, why is that coworker suddenly so aggressive... You following me?"

"Come on, Nat—"

"Following me on this? Someone had shouted at your sweet little girl because they don't like her boss. So she calls you. What would you do?"

Clint simply shook his head.

"And you know what? That kid won't be calling his daddy on you. You can sleep safe. He won't be calling his mummy either. Because he can't. Unlike Lila, who, despite all the shit that happened to her, still has Laura and you, this kid just has an aunt. So, Clint, you can bathe in the glory of having taken your anger at Stark out on his orphan intern. I hope you feel satisfied."

####

Clint stopped showing in their shared space, either out of shame or outraged self-righteousness, they didn't know. Natasha hoped it was the first one, while Sam opted for the second. He didn't really have a high opinion about the archer as a person, but he had expected better than _that_. Ah, well.

"Tony will be allowed to go back to his own rooms tomorrow," Natasha dropped the surprise one day. "His burns are healed enough and his lungs are back in working condition, but he is rather weakened... I don't think Pepper will allow him to fly out with us any time soon."

"She'd better not, for his own sake. He has no self-preservation instinct."

"Let's just hope he postpones going nuclear on the kid until I can get Clint to fill in his form," she added after a moment. "At least then the poor boy will have something to fall back on. But I think Pepper is not actually as angry at him as she plays it up to be. When we saw him talking to Clint and becoming anxious, she was out of her office in seconds."

"Maybe she _is_ friends with his aunt and that's why she is worried about him."

"She might actually be the only one."

They turned to where Clint was leaning against the entrance to their area, face set in a scowl.

"What?"

"Stop being a dick to the boy—"

"Don't, Tasha. Sorry. I— I went to snoop around a bit. About the kid. OK? Just to— I wanted to see. Yeah, he has an aunt, a perfectly nice woman, a nurse. Works more hours than any two of us together on a bad day. What made me suspicious is why such a nice, kind, soft-spoken kid doesn't go outside, spend time with mates. Kick a ball around or something."

Sam made a jerky nod in agreement, but they stayed silent.

"Kid doesn't have friends. Well, he has one, and that only one is visiting his family for the summer."

"Classmates? Any kind of social group?"

"Nah. I checked. Got into his school's system. That's how I know about that one he hangs out with— Edward. What a dorky name. Anyway, Peter Parker here," Clint tapped his phone. "Is a star pupil in a nerdy-geeky-computery school, keeps to himself, according to his homeroom teacher's assessment prefers solitary pursuits like robotics, chemistry or photography, very much not into sports, does not belong to any discernible peer groups—" he made a dramatic pause.

"But?"

Clint pressed his lips into a thin line.

"There is no mention of the internship on the record. In fact, Peter seems to be seen as a, well, the school psychologist calls it 'an imaginative child'. In short, they think he's lying."

"But—" Steve frowned and turned to Nat. "You saw him, right?"

"Bright as day."

"Sits next to Pepper, has access to the systems, has tasks given by her— Doesn't seem like he is here just randomly. He's been calling us and had our actual gear on the list."

"Something smells wrong here, doesn't it? And I don't mean just Clint's hair products."

"Hey."

"It does. Clint, what else is on his record?"

"Nothing much. Well, nothing on the record, as in, in the files. But there is also surveillance I managed to pull from the school systems and that tells me more."

They all gathered closer to where Clint was pulling up the footage from his phone.

"Luckily the backup they keep rotates two months, so I got to the last three weeks of school of recordings, and I caught a pattern. Watch this."

Peter - they all knew the face by now, thanks to Natasha snapping a few photos from Pepper's office - was talking to a shorter, rounder boy - "That's Edward," Clint added - and they were both looking through a thick folder they had opened on a windowsill - something filled with loose pieces of paper and probably weighing at least two pounds. People were passing them by, carrying their own bags and backpacks, pulling what looked like little robots - there was even something very much like an R2D2 rolling by.

"OK, so—?"

"Wait for it."

And there is was.

After just a few seconds, Peter and Edward found themselves suddenly smacked up their heads by some asshole who had crept up to them from behind. They both jerked up - probably with a shout - and turned towards their assailant.

And proceeded to do nothing about it, but listen to the guy berate them, laugh at them and then walk away with a roll of his eyes.

Listen _meekly_.

"Yeah. They are nerds. And they are being bullied."

"One kid—"

"One kid, three times a day, almost every bloody day. I got bored after watching that one week, so I didn't even scroll back for older recordings, but it doesn't seem like a rare or new thing."

"They are being bullied on a regular basis," Steve said slowly. "Sam, look at them. Apart from being surprised with being hit, they don't seem surprised at the fact - or at the person. They just listen to him and wait until he goes away. They don't even— And nobody reacts! Like everyone is used to this, this—"

"We know, you don't like bullies," Natasha sighed. "So what, Clint. Stark's little intern is getting bullied, you're right. What now?"

"Now, I'm going to fill in the bloody form," Clint grumbled, turning his phone off.

"And apologise?" Sam suggested softly.

"Yeah. Probably that, too."

"And...?"

"And then we find that little shit and make his life hell."

"Just to clarify, you mean that greasy-looking one, not the intern."

"Nobody's touching the intern."

"So... research about the bully?"

"I have a name, an address and his licence plates," Clint provided happily. "And he is in the city for summer. In fact, he has an internship..."

Clint's dramatic pauses were getting annoying.

"At Hammertech."

Natasha choked on her tea.

That was going to be doubly interesting.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter. And Nat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing Sunday post. I was stuck on a writer's block in my novel (still ~35k of text to be written and I'm going through a deep crisis) and so decided to review the first act of it, to gain momentum again. The result was me going to sleep at 3AM and forgetting about everything.  
> Hope this brightens up someone's Monday :)

She pulled the bag with paperwork higher on her shoulder and entered the elevator, already thinking of the queue of tasks she still had to do - and prepare for handover for Tony, as soon as Pepper deemed him rested enough to take some responsibilites back.

The door almost closed, but a quick "FRIDAY, please!" from outside made them open, and the boy - the same boy they had been circling around - pushed in.

"Sorry! Thanks, FRI. So sorry, ma'am. I'm just— terribly late today."

"No problem. Ah- which floor?"

"FRI? Which floor am I supposed to—?"

"Miss Boss says go right up."

And the boy brightened up. Like a lightbulb.

"What about me then, FRIDAY?"

"Same for you, Miss Romanov."

The boy stiffened. And looked up at her.

"Whoa."

"Hello," she smiled in a hopefully non-threatening manner.

His eyes were _big_.

"You-you-you are B-Black Widow," he whispered. Worshipfully.

She could only nod.

"A-I'm so sorry, ma'am. I mean. Agent. Miss. I mean— So sorry! I— Oh my God, FRI, please, just kill me now."

"Can't do, Mr Parker. Miss Boss would have never forgiven me for depriving her of her favourite intern."

"Argh. I'm sorry for keeping the elevator, so sorry! I mean, I suppose you have more pressing — oh my, I just should shut up — Sorry, Miss. I mean."

He was cute. Blushing, hair sticking up, hands shaking, flustered cute.

"No problem. Parker?"

"Peter. Peter Parker. I'm, um. Kind of an intern."

"Pepper's?"

"Well, now, yes. Since Mr Stark was sick and—" he looked aside. "And I couldn't be left on my own, so, she kind of, took me on."

"And normally you work with Tony?"

"M-hm. I mean— He allows me to fix stuff. And build stuff. And, kinda, I just hang around the lab. And—" he shrugged. "I learn from him, I suppose."

"That's nice. So, you're visiting him today?"

"Yeah, first day I can since he moved out of the medbay. Miss Potts said he needed to settle again and be cleared for contact— My aunt is a nurse, you see, so I know it might be dangerous if too many people come in at once. Pathogenes and what not. Last time I saw him I had to wear that protective—"

"Chatting up my intern, Natasha?"

They looked up, suddenly noticing the door being open and Pepper watching them with something of a smirk.

"Just making conversation," she answered glibly. "Kid is so smart, you and Tony can't keep him all to yourselves, it would be unfair."

"Well, Tony was considering introducing him to Bruce, if he ever—" Pepper shrugged. "You know. Fellowship of the nerds."

"Scientists!" came a weak cry of correction from the living room.

Peter's attention was immediately off her, and Pepper only nodded indulgently, before he picked up his overloaded backpack and jogged towards the main section of the penthouse.

"You can talk to him, but don't show him the papers. I'll deal with them."

Pepper's face was drawn and tired as she stopped Natasha and took the bag away.

"Sure. Just wanted to see how he's doing. Sam said he should not be up for several weeks yet, so— Making sure he doesn't stir for anything."

"—and I was making calls, and oh my God, Mr Stark, I talked to so many people, but now I have all the experiments in the lab written down and I found that droid we've lost when your repulsors went off in March. He's been hiding in the vents, feeding power off the cables running there. I'm pretty sure his AI has been taught some weird stuff, but for now I disconnected him and we can examine him later. And I trained Dum-E to sort screws by size. He doesn't deal with nuts quite as well yet. And FRIDAY helped me to map most of the movements we make in the lab and I think we should move the lamps a bit, to make better use of the light, and then the tables, if we just adjust them a bit better, we'll have like hours gained on ergonomy, and—"

The boy was talking a mile an hour and Tony Stark was sitting there, nodding, with a small smile.

"—I hope you will be OK with them, because FRIDAY helped me to document everything and secure them all as they were, but we did a complete cleanup of everything that was just, you know, randomly lying around, and in the storage, and—"

She had never seen Tony that relaxed. Especially considering there was a person more talkative than him, sitting right next to him and showing him stuff - handing him stuff!

"Peter's allowed," Pepper breathed. "We just needed to make sure Tony was healthy enough to handle— teenagers are like little self-propelled infection vectors."

"I've heard that!"

"You were supposed to!"

_What._

"I washed my hands downstairs, Happy watched me! And he made sure I disinfected everything I have! He even made me go through the UV thingie they use...!"

"Come on, Pepper, did you really have Happy disinfect my intern?"

"Well, someone has to make sure you don't do yourself in by accident. I'd have a mess of a company to manage then."

"Oh, well, if you put it like this. Romanov. Here to check if the rumours are correct?"

"That you've turned into a cocoon and will emerge as a butterfly? Or the one that you've accidentally managed to dye your beard green and had to shave it all away and you're hiding until it regrows?"

Peter giggled like a loon.

"There's one that says Mr Stark got caught in one of his suits and FRIDAY can't break him out, so we are waiting for Thor or Hulk to visit and get him out."

"And one about Tony actually walking around shaved, and pretending to be one of the lower tier scientists down in the labs," Pepper added.

"Well, the one I've heard is that you got yourself badly burnt and are now getting better," Natasha said softly, sitting on the soft chair in front of Tony's couch. "So, how are you?"

"Breathing without a mask and a ton of equipment monitoring me. Not on massive amount of painkillers anymore. Not up to long reading and doing paperwork yet, but I think I'll be good for a few minutes of conversation. Kiddo, there's pizza in the fridge if you need someth— HEAT IT UP YOU LITTLE BARBARIAN!"

"Sowwy."

"Geez. Just— out of my sight, seriously. Makes my stomach ache just looking at you— NOT STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CARTON— No, I mean. Pep, make him stop!"

Natasha saw Pepper's lips trembling in a suppressed smile.

"Yeah, so, you met Peter," Tony turned back to her. "When he is not being a disgusting little hole for food, he is actually reasonably smart. Bruce-level smart."

The boy choked on the OJ he had been mainlining from the container.

"That's what you get for drinking it like that. Use a glass, you heathen."

"He is adorable," she mock-whispered, watching the teen splutter.

"You wouldn't think so if you had met him on a regular lab day. Either talks fifty miles an hour and you can't hear yourself thinking, or he sulks over his table or he tries to steal my coffee."

Natasha suppressed a smile.

"So, basically, a mini-Tony."

"Now you're just being insulting."

"I'm OK being compared to Mister Stark," the boy provided eagerly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Just not so mini, since he is only like an inch taller than me. And I'm the _only_ one of us that's still growing."

"You see what I have to work with? Every. Day."

"You love him anyway," Pepper appeared by the boy's side and hugged him lightly.

"Unfounded accusations. I don't love him, I find him useful around the lab."

Tony's gruff answer was obviously a joke, but Nat saw the boy's face fall.

"Tony," she hissed, nodding towards Peter and the man twisted in his seat to have a look.

"Shit, kid, sorry. Come here, you big baby."

In seconds, Natasha saw the second marvel of the day, Tony Stark willingly hugging someone who wasn't a leggy blonde.

"Peter, are you sure Happy disinfected you?" Pepper sighed.

"Yes, ma'am," came a muffled reply. "I can still smell the alcohol from the spray."

"OK, stay then, keep him immobile on that couch, fetch the oxygen mask if needed, FRIDAY will tell you where it is. I need to go over some paperwork with Natasha."

"M-hm."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovelies, only 2 chapters left now, so... ;)  
> Enjoy.

"What was _that_?" she mumbled as they closed the door to the 'home office' Pepper kept in the penthouse.

"That was Tony's emotional support teenage intern. We had to keep him mostly away because the boy stresses way too much when Tony is hurt, and then Tony's stressed because Pete's stressed and you don't want to see where THAT spiral ends."

"Seventy-two hours in a workshop?"

"Their record is forty, but only because Tony noticed Pete was asleep at some point and decided to get him upstairs. Once he settled the kid on the sofa, he fell asleep on the chair next to him, ostensibly under the pretence of making sure Pete stays put."

"Basically, you got yourself a human shaped equivalent of a service dog."

Pepper pursed her lips and scowled.

"I wouldn't call him that within Tony's hearing. Or mine. Peter's more in the area of a... nephew. Had either of us had ever had a sibling, I could see Tony semi-adopting some of their kids, if they were smart enough. As a result, he has someone to talk science to and the additional advantage is that Peter really _is_ a very good boy. Like—" she shook her head and the messily done bun shed some strands of hair. "He really cares about Tony. And Tony finally can share all that knowledge and fascination with tech with someone who is as smart as him but isn't burdened by a similar life experience. Watching the two of them in the lab? Like magic."

"The kid works with Tony on a daily basis, like--"

"Like nobody else before, yes. FRIDAY and the bots think Peter is the best thing since laser bread slicer. Sit, sit, I want to give them time..."

They stretched on the soft chairs and Natasha eyed the heap of files uncomfortably.

"How well is Tony, really?" she asked softly, and watched Pepper's face fall a bit.

"Just as you can see. Up to walking to the couch— Pneumonia took a lot out of him, what with the chest wounds and— There's always a risk of his sternum snapping, since it's printed in light filament."

"I remember seeing X-rays of his chest. That hole was frigging deep. I thought it had to compress his lungs—"

"Twenty to thirty percent."

She couldn't stop a painful grimace.

"But since he got it out?"

"He's been getting physio and treatments and meds, to get him back into alignment, but it's taking time. Nat, I'm telling you this—" she squeezed her eyes shut. "I need someone to look out for him in the field. Rhodey isn't there with you every time, but I need you to take a look at him, every time, check— Check how badly he's bruised."

"Pepper—"

"Rogers has magical healing, he's probably forgotten what hurts. Wilson is a medic himself, but he doesn't really know Tony. Barton hates Tony's guts, and so does Maximov. You are the only one I can trust with this - the only one who cares and knows him well enough to notice if he bullshits you about being OK."

She nodded slowly.

"Anything else?"

"Any injury related to upper torso is a concern. Even getting hit on the shoulder. If he is out of his suit, he is defenceless, you know that yourself."

They sat for a moment, each with a drink Pepper had made in the meanwhile.

"That thing you had the kid do— did he really need to make the inventory of Tony's lab?"

Pepper's lips twitched.

"Or was it just to drive home the message that we've been mooching off Tony all that time?"

The greatest CEO in the US smiled. Crookedly.

"I thought you'd be the first one to spot that. And anyway, _you_ don't do all that— that shit that others do. Well, Wilson is very economical. He doesn't lose anything, and if he does, it's usually justified."

"Like that pair of boots that got melted off his legs in the acid spill."

"Or these gloves that got shredded by the enzyme from that octopus thing."

"Yuck. Anyway, yes, Sam is pretty strict about it. And he keeps it all in order."

'The others don't' was something of a silent followup.

"Maximov doesn't really use a lot of tools, just her coat and gloves, so she's fine."

"The main point is Steve."

"And Barton."

"Steve seemed— daunted by the numbers. And we all think Clint does this shit on purpose. The size of beef he has with Tony over every little insult—"

"He's been just as nasty back to Tony."

"Because he feels the need to prove some male bullshit. Anyway, yeah, if you wanted to make it obvious that Tony has been funding us, well, that worked."

"How do they know it's Tony and not the company?"

Nat shrugged and sipped her drink.

"I might have pointed out that it would have been illegal for Tony to do that on company budget."

"Well, I wouldn't have signed off on that kind of expense, definitely."

####

"Tony's doing better. Good enough to sit on the sofa for an hour and talk to his intern."

"He was in the workshop?" Sam looked up from his book with a frown.

"No, the kid was in the penthouse."

They all turned towards her.

"You were in the penthouse?"

"Pepper invited me. Mostly to show me how Tony is doing, I think. I met the boy, he's adorable when flustered, stutters when he meets superheroes and calls everyone Miss and Mister. Oh, and he's allowed to hand Tony things."

Sam nodded slowly.

"What do you mean then? We've been doing good deeds for Stark's secret lovechild?" Clint sighed. "I mean— kid is OK, I suppose, but from what you've been telling us, Potts seemed to be quite harsh with him."

"She was just hassling him to eat enough. The kid has about the same amount of self-preservation instincts as Tony does, so he needs supervision. But, unlike Tony, he _is_ a kid, and so is vulnerable to being threatened with Pepper telling on him, since she knows his aunt."

She wasn't proud of her badly assessing the kid's importance, but then— Had she guessed better, and told them he was Tony's favourite, what would have happened? They wouldn't have gone along with the scheme to help him, at least not that easily.

At least this way _they_ had learnt something.

"Good that this is done and Tony's healing. We'll need his help with this new thing Fury has sent us—"

Steve looked _worried_. And angry.

Damn.

"What is it?"

Sam groaned.

"Steve is not happy about the idea and neither am I. We are supposed to go vigilante hunting. Fury has already collected or reviewed most of the city small fry, including getting royally chinned by that wacky PI, but he says that there's one more guy he's looking for, and we'd need Tony for that, because he seems to be using scavenged SI tech."

"That's not good. Show me."

Steve clicked on the remote and the large screen on the wall displayed a red-and-blue figure with a spider emblem on his chest, making a sommersault over a wide street.

"What the hell—"

"Spider-Man, he calls himself. Obviously enhanced, speed, strength, stability and— another s — sticky. Not sure if it's him or the suit, but look at that guy climb. And he is most probably the one that had helped us the last time, the movement pattern matches the way he had shown up in the middle of the fight."

He climbed, indeed. With some very clingy gloves.

_Wait a mome—_

Nat sighed.

"And where does he hang out? Do we have patterns on him?"

"Mostly around Queens, occasionally straying a block or two away. Usually in pursuit of someone. Recently he's been mostly absent and that seems to be bugging Fury."

"MO?"

"Taking kittens off trees, helping tourists, finding parents of lost kids, stopping burglaries, webbing up perps—"

"Webbing up— He makes web?" she cringed. "With his— his—"

_Please no please no please no._

"He shoots some kind of polymeric glue from his hands," Sam explained quickly. "And he incapacitates criminals with it. Basically, it's a complex adhesive with some additives that make it form ropes and then dissolve with time. He uses the same compound to swing around the city."

"Like Tarzan with self-made vines."

"Kinda. I wonder how much muscle mass hides under that leotard. Because, look—"

They watched the video for a few more minutes, admiring the man's strength and stamina.

"Stop. Scroll back a bit," Clint interrupted. "See, this? The school Stark's intern goes to."

"He goes to school in Queens? OK. Maybe he'll know something about Spider-Man?" Sam suggested. "Kids usually keep track of local vigilantes, especially these non-lethal. This guy only incapacitates, unlike Miss Jones or Daredevil."

"Good, at least we don't have another potential killer on our hands," she murmured. "OK. Let me ask the kid, and then we'll go to the ground and investigate in the streets, wait for the spider to crawl out of his web."

"Will the kid talk to you?"

She shrugged.

"Why not? He already likes me, that much I know. I can try making small talk. School is starting soon, this may give me an opening."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Monday for me already, but I just got home 30 minutes ago, so there was no time to post before ;)

The elevator only contained one person and that was the exact person Nat wanted to talk to.

"Hello, Peter."

"O-oh," he looked up from the screen of a large tablet. "Hello, Miss Romanov. Agent. Miss."

"Natasha is good, too. Or Nat."

"OK, Miss Nat."

"FRI, Pepper's office, please. And tell her I have the contracts she wanted."

"Of course, Miss Romanov."

"Thank you, FRIDAY. And how are you, Peter?"

The boy shrugged.

"Bored, kinda. Done with all the lab cleanup and stuff. And all the paperwork Miss Potts gave me to complete. Fixed up my bot, just waiting for Mister Stark to be up so we can test it. I even completed all my extra-credit summer work and the reading and—" he smiled crookedly. "And Miss Potts says I should just relax, but— Kinda looking for something to do now. Just done helping FRI with a code correction today, actually."

"Thank you, Peter," the AI provided suddenly.

"No prob. Karen is already integrating her own, so you two can communicate and check."

"Karen?"

"My— well, Mister Stark made me an AI for my phone and— and laptop, and I work with her— like, a training ground, I suppose? She makes sure I have all my assignments done and I keep track of stuff— So I work with her and with FRIDAY to give them, like, more emotional expression in their voices?"

"That's interesting, but why?"

They exited on Pepper's floor and kept strolling slowly.

"People don't see FRIDAY as a person, because for them she sounds artificial, if you know what I mean? So I want her to have the ability to put more _feelings_ into the way she speaks. No offense, FRI, but that's just humans who are weird, not you."

"None taken, Peter. Miss Romanov, Miss Potts will be with you in two minutes."

"Can I sit with you for the while, Peter?"

"S-sure—" he scrambled for another chair and pulled it closer for her.

"I actually have a question, since— You are from Queens?"

"Right...?"

"So, you see— I know that Queens has a local vigilante, so maybe you could tell me what you know about him?"

The boy blinked.

"W-what?"

"Spider-man? This red and blue guy, jumps buildings and so on?"

"W-well—" Peter stuttered, breathing rapidly. "Y-yeah, I know— about him. Never really seen him— like, face to face."

"Or face to mask," she mused. "Oh, well. Nevermind. He's been mostly absent for the last few weeks and it became a bit suspicious, so some of our bosses sent us to check on him and maybe also see what he would say to the proposition of working with us."

"O-oh. I see. No. No idea— no idea where he might— Miss Potts!"

"Nat, stop distracting my intern. Come on, Pete. You can take your stuff upstairs and go see Tony for an hour, he's up, and he has some tasks for you."

"Great! See you, Miss Nat!"

Pepper raised an eyebrow in a question at her.

"What? Kid's nice. Just a bit— stuttery."

"You shouldn't use your superhero status to interrogate easily influenced nerds, Nat. And yes, I've heard at least half of that. What does Fury want with our friendly neighbourhood arachnid?"

"What?"

"That's what Tony calls him. He also calls him many other things, but that one is most frequently used."

"Tony— knows him. Him-him? Or just about him?"

Pepper shrugged.

"Guy's been jumping around decked out in SI tech, what did you think?"

"Oh, thank goodness. I'll talk to Tony later, maybe he'll help us bring the spider in for a talk—"

The blonde sighed.

"Let _me_ talk to Tony first, OK? This might not be _that_ easy."

Natasha shrugged. Sure, if Pepper wanted to prepare Tony for every interaction with the team, why not. Not that it seemed like such a big issue to _prepare_ someone for. How hard could it be to get the contact info for one spider-themed vigilante in that city? Especially from man who spilled his secrets on a press conference like Tony did...?

He wouldn't be hiding someone else's identity more carefully than he did his own, would he?

As she walked to the lift, she passed by Peter, who was looking at the lift with a frown and a phone to his ear.

"...I mean, I thought I'd legitimately _die_ right there, Ned. Seriously. I... No, man! She just... talked to me! Like face to face! MJ would kill me if she knew... no way. No I can't introduce you, don't be... like seriously, no. No. I can't just bring people around, Avengers aren't some museum exhibit for you to drool at through a window. Be cool, OK?"

He closed the call and thumped his head on the lift door.

"FRIDAY, why do I have such dorky friends?"

"You are a dork yourself," Natasha couldn't stop herself from remarking. "Now, I couldn't help but overhear, but is your friend pestering you to get him here...?"

The boy went _white_.

"Um. Kinda. Maybe. He is— Like, he is a fanboy. Serious fanboy."

"Oh. And of someone in particular...?"

Peter was looking anywhere but at her.

"Thor, mostly," he mumbled. "But kinda of like all Avengers, as a team."

She nodded slowly.

"FRIDAY, what's the holdup?" the boy asked suddenly.

"I'm afraid someone managed to jam the door on the fifteenth storage floor, Peter. If you and Miss Romanov could move to the eastern lift, I can get that one for you quicker."

Peter sighed and shook his head.

"Thank you, FRI. Let's go?" he nodded to her. "If someone jammed the door on the fifteenth, they probably also spilled something and we wouldn't want to be caught in _that_ kind of mess."

She frowned, trying to recall what was where.

"Fifteenth is...?"

"Stinky and gooey. Or, rather, the storage of chemicals. No idea why someone would even use this lift, instead of the industrial one, but maybe they just had a small package... Anyway. Yeah, Ned is kind of— you know. Starstruck. Kinda. Has been ever since I got the internship. Second-handed starstruck, if you will."

"And you? Did you even dare to speak up in Tony's presence?" she nudged his shoulder as they waited for a group of suits to pass through the corridor.

"Oh my... I mean, I stuttered and got all red all the time. And stuff. I think I dropped more tools in the first two weeks here than in my entire life...!"

"And how would you feel about meeting some other Avengers?"

The kid looked as if he was about to have a stroke.

"W— why, wh— how, what, me?"

"Yeah, you. You work with Tony, why not meet the rest of the team?"

"B— but— what— Not sure Mister Stark—"

"I'll clear it with Tony, OK?"

"I'm not— I mean. Wouldn't want to intrude... Like..."

She smiled. The boy was just precious. What, sixteen? Seventeen? At exactly the right age to be starstruck and try to play it cool.

They finally were at the lift.

"Tell you what. I'll talk to Tony and Pepper, since they are your bosses, and ask if you can spend an afternoon or two with us... Maybe having a go at the flying simulators. All of us need to refresh our piloting skills, even if it's mostly Clint and I who fly the quinjet. You could try, too."

She nudged him with her shoulder lightly again, to throw him out of his stupor.

"Hm? Peter?"

"Y-yeah. Sure. Would— would love to...! But only if Mister Stark is OK with it?"

"No worries. I'll negotiate for your time with your mentor."

The boy was trembling in place, face stuck somewhere between a smile and awed fear.

"Thank you, Miss Romanov," he managed finally.

It felt _good_. The boy was so nice and so eager to please, it actually felt good to offer him something extra. It wouldn't be a hassle for them to put him in front of a beginner lesson on Quinjet controls and see how someone with no training dealt with it, and hey, if the kid was good at it, he'd gain an interesting skill. If not, he'd spend some time with semi-celebrities and maybe become a bit of a bridge between Tony and them. They had to rebuild proper social contact in the team, and Peter, with his curls and big eyes and that curiosity that obviously brought him where he was, might just be the catalyst for that.

"We could make it Friday evening one week..." she mused. "And then buy pizza and have a movie. We're still bringing Steve up to date on the last decade or two of culture, so maybe you'd have an idea or two for something we could watch?"

It was also fun to watch the parade of emotions going across Peter's face, as his brain processed that he had just been invited to a movie and pizza evening with _The Avengers._

_Oh boy. This is going to be so good._

####

The kid was _a kid_. A regular teenager, kind of coltish, maybe a bit awkward. A kid.

Sam watched the boy watching them, as his eyes jumped from him to Clint to Wanda to Steve, lips moving silently in something that could have been "oh shit oh shit oh shit".

The way the boy relaxed when Natasha came into view was so obvious that Sam could feel his own jaw muscles unclenching. The kid _had been on a verge of bolting_ in that short time it took for Nat to show up. Like he was afraid of them.

Afraid. Of the world most famous superheroes.

They must have made a shit impression if the person the kid trusted most was an actual assassin.

Nat ruffled the kid's curls, which he smoothed down quickly with a scowl.

"Team, this is Peter, Tony's intern. Peter, this is Wanda, Sam, Steve and Clint. Try not to use too many titles with them, if you could. Just their names. Wanda is mostly doing gymnastics, so I don't know if you'd be interested in trying it out... Clint is setting up the automated shooting range for all of us, so if you want to check how you handle a weapon, we can do that too. Sam is mostly fiddling with his wings..."

The boy's hands fluttered up, as if we wanted to touch them, immediately.

"The Falcon's wings..." he whispered.

 _A fan!_ screamed Sam's overactive imagination.

"...and Steve is just setting up for some light lifting. What we will check for the time being, however, is the piloting simulation. Sam, do you want to join us and explain what are the differences between this and actual airforce planes?"

He did. The boy was watching him with eyes as big as saucers.

"Come on, kiddo. Sit here and let me show you how people can fly when they don't have my little wingpack."

####

Kid was a bloody natural. Probably years of dodging bullies in school corridors had given him some additional senses, but he had razor-sharp reflexes and some very good spatial awareness. Very soon he was done with the tutorial run of the jet controls and working his way through an actual "flight".

Sam could only nod his head appreciatively as the kid touched down on a simulated airplane carrier.

"How did I do?" Peter asked breathlessly, looking up at Sam. And Nat. And all the others who had gathered to watch. "Um...?"

"How old are you, son?"

"Sixteen, Mr R... Um. Steve."

"So you don't have a driving licence yet?"

"No, not even a learner's permit. Never had time to do it, and then our car kinda broke down, so..." the boy shrugged dejectedly. "Didn't make sense to waste money on the course."

"You could just be the first person to get pilot certificates before they have a driving licence then," Clint provided. "Because this shit you just showed? It's professional level good."

"Airforce level," Sam added. "I've seen candidate pilots not managing that much on sim sessions after weeks of training."

"B-but I... I was just messing around, and..." the kid spluttered. "I didn't... do anything!"

Nat messed up his curls again.

"Don't worry, _malchik_. You didn't do anything wrong. Quite to the contrary. But we could talk to Tony about getting you more training anyway. Imagine being able to flash your pilot licence at school..."

The boy groaned.

"Nobody would believe me anyway. They _never_ believe me. I stopped trying after I got detention for... But yeah, why not. It will be cool to see if I can do the real thing. If Mister Stark is OK with it..."

That school issue was starting to get on Sam's nerves. He exchanged a glance with Steve, who was watching the boy intently. They'd have to do something about the kid's teachers and Steve would be the best one to deal with them.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since tomorrow I'm going to be spending the entire day on various cleaning activities, and not sure when I'd be able to get to post this, here it is, a day early.
> 
> Thank you all for following this story, commenting, clicking kudos and in general being here :)

"What's up, losers? Ah, nothing, obviously, because you're _losers_."

Peter glanced up at Flash, just to check where the bully was, but went back to scrolling the photos on his phone as Ned was watching over his shoulder and MJ studiously ignored their chatter.

"And what's this?" his friend asked worshipfully.

"She allowed me to try the newest model. It was awesome."

"What... does this move in all directions?"

"Yeah. Kind of sticks a tiny bit on transition to full drop, but we're working on getting it smoother. There was an error in coding that got queued for correction, but then most of summer... you know. And I was stuck doing office work... And anyway I wouldn't touch it without permission."

"But they allowed you to train on it?"

"Yeah, to shake out any bugs that they ignored, because they already know how to deal with stuff."

He swiped to the next photo.

"What... in the world..."

"Yeah."

"MJ, look. _Look_."

"Don't bother MJ, Ned."

"Gimme."

He put his phone into her outstretched hand immediately.

"Nice tights, Parker."

_Shit._

Flash had sneaked up on MJ and was now over her shoulder, looking at the photo. The one of Peter training with Nat on the roof, in full light of dawn.

That ended up with Flash being smacked on the face with MJ's sketch book (1,5 pounds of cardboard-bound recycled paper) and hollering about it as he tried to get up from the floor.

The situation dissolved when a lunch monitor arrived and tried to work out what, who and why.

"Eugene was being a creep and touching me uninvited," MJ declared without batting an eye. "And he came at me from behind. It was a reflex."

"I wassn touchn'er!"

"He was standing right behind her and leaning over," Peter confirmed quickly. "Total creep."

Ned nodded vigorously.

"And what were the two of you doing at the time?"

"Sitting on the other side of the table. We wouldn't have reached him on time."

"And anyway he, like, totally surprised us," Peter added (with a bit of shame). "Like, we were watching some photos and he totally sneaked up on her."

"Well..." the teacher looked at them. At MJ. At the book. At Flash, whose nose was starting to resemble a well-mashed tomato. "To the nurse with you, Eugene. And you'll be getting some time to consider your behaviour in detention today. There is a little all-American PSA about improper touching that we've recently received. Actually, it might be a good idea to run it for the whole school, now that I think about it."

Peter froze.

_All-American... Can't be...!_

"What PSA?" he asked weakly.

"Captain America recorded a few new ones. You know, a follow-up for the set that was distributed two or three years ago?"

So _that_ was the result of that bet which Steve had lost to Sam when they were doing the idiotic speedcooking competition. Wow. Like. Wow.

"I hope I don't earn myself any detention in the first week," he mumbled. "Can't afford to lose more lab time."

"Peter, I though we've discussed your... fantasies, and you promised not to perpetuate them."

_Ugh, Mr Arton._

Indeed, it was the school psychologist and career advisor now standing next to the lunch monitor, looking at the three of them with a little scowl.

"I'm not perpetuating anything."

"You keep mentioning 'lab time', just like last year. Please refrain, or it will end up with you getting detentions, indeed. Just to cure you of these little delusions."

"But... Yeah. OK. Whatever."

"I'm watching you, Peter."

"Yep. I know."

"And I don't like the way you keep answering me."

Peter counted to ten. And again.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"You said you didn't like me answering you. I don't know what to say."

"You should apologise for lying, first, and for being insolent."

"I apologise if I was insolent, but I really want to ask, what should I do to prove I have any kind of internship? If I get one at... whatever, at a car repair shop. What should I deliver to prove I'm working there?"

"A filled in internship form, a contract and a confirmation letter from your manager, citing your duties."

Peter sighed.

"Which is exactly what I've already delivered last year."

Mister Arton was in front of him in half second flat.

"Next time they'd better not be falsified, Peter. And this has earned you a detention for today. You'll consider your words carefully next time."

"B-but."

"Today and on Monday."

Peter slumped back into his chair and covered his face.

"Shit."

"Still, Flash is right, nice tights," MJ handed him his phone back. "Why don't you show them these photos? They have to believe you have a job with Stark if you have photos with the team."

"Like, sure. Photoshopped or something. I don't know, why does everyone suspect me of being some bloody evil mastermind? I wouldn't even know how to go about faking the paperwork from HR! Not to mention photos. Ones I've taken with my own phone...!"

"What photos?"

He looked around. Betty and his other classmates were standing behind him.

"W-well. I..."

"Peter has been meeting the Avengers," Ned blurted out. "Because Mister Stark has been hurt and Miss Potts kept Peter in the offices..."

Peter headdesked nearly into his mashed potatoes.

####

The detention wasn't very funny, considering that one, he was getting late for a meeting with Mister Stark, two, he was supposed to meet up with Miss Nat after _that_ and check the simulator, three, Flash was there, looking like an apprentice boxer after his first fight, and four, it was in fact Steve droning about sexual harassment from the screen, and now, with some exposure to what Captain America looked like on everyday basis, Peter could see how fixed and stilted that all-American smile was.

Actually, that PSA part had a potential to be turned into an advantage, if he managed to get his hands on the files and play them in the Tower for everyone to see...

Considering he had been getting very familiar with all of the Avengers and working as kind-of-a-conduit between them and Mister Stark, he could very much use some material for tormenting their fearless leader. Watching Steve making appropriately angry faces and uttering things like "explicit consent" and "extreme and utter care" and "sensitive topics" and, with something nearly like a visible cringe, "intimate areas" was fun all by itself, but if he managed to play it on the main screen in the gym, when all the team gathered there, including Mister Stark...

His phone vibrated.

He tried ignoring it and turned the page in his physics textbook.

His phone vibrated and made a sudden noise.

"Parker, what did I say about the phone sound setting?"

"I set it to silent, I swear!"

He dug in his pockets, looking for the offending item that was making progressively more racket.

MISS NAT.

 _Shit_.

"I have to answer this..."

"No, you don't."

"But..."

"Is this your aunt?"

Yes? No? It wasn't May, but then Miss Nat was as good as an aunt now, considering the hours they had spent on balance exercises and lessons on self-care (when she noticed him stopping himself from eating that one more slice of pizza he had been eyeing, she had Things To Say about denying sustenance to a growing body).

"No, it's just... someone I was supposed to meet."

"Gimme that."

The coach didn't even look at the screen as he thumbed the Answer button.

"This is Peter's teacher. Peter is currently staying in detention and... What? What do you mean, Miss?"

Silence.

Miss Nat's voice from the other end.

"I see. I think I need to check with another teacher then. I understand."

Peter's phone was carefully laid aside, as if it was an explosive device, and the coach texted someone.

Mr Arton was with them in a matter of seconds.

"What is it about the internship that you keep talking about, Parker?"

"I haven't even...!"

"Just stop right there. There is being imaginative and then there is plain lying. Like Eugene here, he got himself a proper internship in a realistically chosen company, and provided all the required paperwork. Although I haven't seen the final form anywhere, Eugene... I have one from the end of July, and it was very good."

Flash winced.

"I gave up," he said haughtily. "They weren't interesting enough."

"Hammertech wasn't interesting enough? Eugene, come on. How can _Hammertech_ not be interesting for a guy like you? It's all about tests and electronics and..."

"And paperwork and people being touchy about stuff if you didn't even do..." Flash mumbled, too quietly for the grownups, but just loudly enough for Peter.

"Wait a moment... August, in Hammertech? Wasn't it that explosion that took out the windows on the third floor?"

Flash full-blown paled. That wasn't a good look on him.

"N-no...!"

"Peter, are you implying that Eugene had anything to do with an explosion in his workplace?"

Peter suppressed a shrug.

"Not like Hammer made anything that actually _worked_ in the last what, ten years? I still remember his drones, but they were built by that crazy Russian guy, not by Hammer himself. Mr... Anyway, Hammer is a hack and if someone got anything to blow up over there, it had to be an accident. Because his weapons are kind of wet fireworks category."

"I— I didn't—"

"Peter, it's one thing to lie about your own internship, but trying to discredit a classmate..."

"Just ask at Hammer's why Eugene is not with them anymore. Actually, if he managed to make something explode, they should have kept him on. It's more effective than anything Jus... Hammer himself has created recently."

"And how would you know, hah?" Flash jumped up from his seat. "You're always swanning about, saying stuff about working with Stark in his lab, and the reality is that nobody does that. Nobody is allowed inside. All you could have seen is some offices, because interns are not allowed into labs...!"

"At least I was not working for someone convicted of terrorism."

"You little..."

"I wouldn't finish that if I were you, son," said a very stern, very familiar voice.

Everyone glanced at the screen, but Captain America was still prattling on about being respectful and proper towards others in intimate situations.

Then they glanced at the door.

There was the same man, in a leather jacket, hair all mussed up.

"Peter is late for his internship and I was in the area, so I was asked to pick him up."

At the screen. Cap still prattling.

At the door. Steve Rogers still standing there with a motorcycle helmet in his hand.

At the screen.

"Hi, Steve."

"Hello, Peter. Oh sh... ucks. Are you watching that today...? Well, it seems they don't really work, do they?"

"W-wha..." groaned Flash.

"Well, you've been watching that, so I suppose you've already been shown the older ones, and yet, you decided to attack your classmate, correct? Which means these recordings don't really do much for improving the spirit and morale of the modern youth. Anyway. Can I please take Peter? Tony has been worried about him, so Natasha called and found out he's been stuck in detention, but Tony promised to get the simulator software fixed today and he needs Peter for that..."

Mr Arton hiccupped.

"Tony, as in, Tony Stark?" the coach asked haltingly.

"Of course. Peter is his personal assistant, and since Tony's accident, Peter has become indispensable to all of us... what?"

Mr Arton was trying to stutter through something, so Peter decided to start packing.

"May I have my phone back?"

Coach Ward handed him the mobile, activating the screen accidentally.

His eyes widened at the photo.

"Is that..."

"Me and Miss Romanov, yes."

"Natasha has been teaching Peter some martial arts," Steve supplied helpfully. "We thought he could benefit from some defensive skills."

"Sure. Sure. Everyone would..." Mr Arton trailed off. "Um. Peter, please have the paperwork for your internship in my office next week."

"Will do. Can I go now?"

Both the coach and Mr Arton just nodded silently, while Flash was watching him from his spot in front of the TV. Intently.

####

The bike parked in front of the school was already attracting attention, since it was a lovely WWII piece with a sidecar and all the old-style lamps and paint. Very characteristic and quite recognisable.

"Zipper up and put the helmet on, kiddo. Tony would have my head if I allowed yours to get bumped."

Peter obediently secured the strap and got into the sidecar, putting his backpack away safely.

It was fun. And surreal. Getting driven halfway across the city by Captain America, to meet up with Iron Man and other Avengers for some light workout, lab time, fixing up a real life flying simulator and maybe a movie and a bite of pizza. Or two.

Just the same as every other afternoon since Miss Nat had invited him for the training-and-movie-evening combo and he and Falcon got into a discussion about the aerodynamics of the new model of wings that Mister Stark had apparently been working on, which took them well into the late hours, which prompted Captain Rogers — Steve — to offer dropping Peter off at home on his bike. Well, not on, as in, sitting on the bike seat, but definitely with the bike, since Peter was put in the sidecar and delivered to May in that fashion. And so it had become the way he was ferried around ever since, whenever they forgot to watch the clock or he had to be picked up from somewhere and Steve was around.

All in all, the Avengers were an interesting bunch and he was more than happy to be the link between them and Mr Stark, if needed, and to serve as the official reason for the team to get back together from time to time, with Steve and Mr Stark cooperating more and more smoothly with every week passing.

There still remained the little detail of the team combing the neighbourhood for Spider-Man and neither Peter not Tony ever telling them who he actually was. But seriously, getting his internship explosively confirmed by Steve showing up and learning that Flash's own internship had literally gone up in flames was enough excitement for September. Maybe he'd tell them in October. October sounded like a good idea.

Or maybe Halloween! He could dress up in his suit and show up for the training like this. Halloween was even better. Yeah. _Halloween identity reveal._

_That sounds like the best thing to do._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that this story is finished, I'd like to ask you for a favour - since I'm taking a writing course (in fact, several in a row), and I'm writing a novel, I need some feedback. If you decide to leave a comment, can you please write me an answer to one (or more!) of the following?  
> \- what made you go "oooh, sweet!"  
> \- what made you go "argh, that hurt!"  
> \- what made you go "meh"  
> \- what made you go "nope"  
> I strive to improve my writing and that's why I'm asking for these answers. I want to eliminate the "meh" and the "nope" and add more from the more positive side of reaction spectrum :))

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [my tumblr](https://srebrnafh.tumblr.com/).  
> [My writing blog.](https://fanfik.wordpress.com/)  
> [My handmade blog.](https://srebrna.wordpress.com/)


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